#Skepticism

"I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess."

"Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither."

"It would be better for us to have some doubts in an honest pursuit of truth, than it would be for us to be certain about something that was not true."

"Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

"We all ought to understand we're on our own. Believing in Santa Claus doesn't do kids any harm for a few years but it isn't smart for them to continue waiting all their lives for him to come down the chimney with something wonderful. Santa Claus and God are cousins."

"Liberty a word without which all other words are vain."

"What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts."

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."

"Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance."

"Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them."

"Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie."

"There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday be an act of rebellion."

"You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it."

"All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe."

"I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs."

"You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility."

"Surely we cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a bang, turning the key of the madhouse on all the mystics of history. You cannot take the region of the unknown and calmly say that, though you know nothing about it, you know all the gates are locked. We do not know enough about the unknown to know that it is unknowable."

"Isn't this enough? Just this world? Just THIS?"

"If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic."

"People wrap themselves in their beliefs. And they do it in such a way that you can't set them free. Not even the truth will set them free."