Skeptical Quote Collection

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe has included a 'Skeptical Quote of the Week' segment since episode 60, September 13^th 2006. These quotes are collected in the table below, and can be sorted by first name, surname or episode number.

Links to episode pages go straight to the skeptical quote section where available. Episodes awaiting transcription are shown in red.

If a quote is repeated, it is listed under the first episode it was featured in.

Quote	First name	Surname	SGU ep.
Science, the only true magic.	Dexter	Dexter Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory	60
It's curious, isn't it, that with low-grade, chronic conditions (back pain, seasonal affective disorder, what have you) people are eager to try alternative hocus-pocus. But bring on something virulent, acute, and truly terrifying, then, brother, bring on Western medicine! Nothing like your eyeballs leaking blood to put things in perspective, hey?	kWe	kWe kWe	60
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.	James	Randi	61
Pseudoscience is like a virus. At low levels, it's no big deal, but when it reaches a certain threshold it becomes sickening.	Phil	Plait	62
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.	Voltaire	Voltaire Voltaire	63 66
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.	Carl	Sagan	64
If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created that whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading mankind?	Arthur C	Clarke	65
The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable	Paul	Broca	67
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.	Carl	Sagan	68
I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape.	Desmond	Morris	69
A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral.	Michael	Shermer	70
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.	Bertrand	Russell	71
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.	Werner	Heisenberg	72
Coincidence is the science of the true believer.	Chet	Raymo	73
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.	Carl	Sagan	74 278
The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.	Carl	Sagan	74
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.	Isaac	Asimov	75 212
The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.	George Bernard	Shaw	76
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny'.	Isaac	Asimov	77
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.	John	Adams	78 91
I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.	Gerry	Spence	79
I am not a fan of Sigmund Freud because his theories are not testicle.	Richard	Wiseman	80
Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god, but a great rock, and the sun a hot rock.	Anaxagoras	Anaxagoras Anaxagoras	81 190
I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be. - response to the question "Don't you believe in anything?"	Isaac	Asimov	82
Aquarius is a miscellaneous set of stars all at different distances from us, which have no connection with each other except that they constitute a (meaningless) pattern when seen from a certain (not particularly special) place in the galaxy (here).	Richard	Dawkins	83
If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day.	J. A	Wheeler	84
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.	Thomas Henry	Huxley	85
The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.	Carl	Sagan	86
I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.	Simon	Cameron	87
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.	André	Gide	88
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing.	Anatole	France	89
De omnibus dubitandum. All is to be doubted.	René	Descartes	90 142
Death is an engineering problem.	Bart	Kosko	92
Science . . . looks skeptically at all claims to knowledge, old and new. It teaches not blind obedience to those in authority but to vigorous debate, and in many respects that's the secret of its success.	Carl	Sagan	93
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious...the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.	Albert	Einstein	94
Great intellects are skeptical.	Friedrich	Nietzsche	95
The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.	Thomas	Jefferson	96
What is wrong with priests and popes is that instead of being apostles and saints, they are nothing but empirics who say 'I know' instead of 'I am learning,' and pray for credulity and inertia as wise men pray for skepticism and activity.	George Bernard	Shaw	97
Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.	George	Santayana	98
Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.	David	Suzuki	99 338
The amount of years that she will live longer than us because of the diet is directly proportional to the horror of her life. - commenting on Rebecca Watson's vegetarian diet	Perry	DeAngelis	100
The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.	George Jean	Nathan	101
The primary tool of science is skepticism, whose light shrivels unquestioning faith.	Mike	Huben	102
There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings.	Friedrich	Nietzsche	103
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.	Dr. Martin Luther	King, Jr	105
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.	Albert	Einstein	106
To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.	Stanisław I	Leszczyński	107
Thinking critically is a chore. It does not come naturally or easily. And if the fruits of such efforts are not carefully displayed to young minds, then they will not harvest them. Every school child must be implanted with the wonder of the atom, not the thrall of magic.	Perry	DeAngelis	110
There is joy in rationality, happiness in clarity of mind. Freethought is thrilling and fulfilling -absolutely essential to mental health and happiness.	Dan	Barker	111
I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.	Carl	Sagan	112
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.	Sir Isaac	Newton	113
To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.	Evelyn Fox	Keller	114
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.	Aristotle	Aristotle Aristotle	115
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.	Kurt	Vonnegut	116
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.	Douglas	Adams	117
The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.	Albert	Einstein	118
Offense is what people take when they can't take argument.	Richard	Dawkins	119
Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.	Edwin	Hubble	120
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition.	Carl	Sagan	121
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.	Stephen	Hawking	122
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.	Steven	Weinberg	123
No amount of experiments can ever prove me right; a single experiment may at anytime prove me wrong.	Albert	Einstein	124
The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.	H. L	Mencken	125
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.	Lee	Bruce	126
A ghost is someone who hasn't made it - in other words, who died, and they don't know they're dead. So they keep walking around and thinking that you're inhabiting their - let's say, their domain. So they're aggravated with you. A spirit is, like, your mother, my dad, who've made it. They can come around, but they come around in a loving way because they've already made it to God. Most people make it. Animal totems, like the tiger, come from the Other Side to protect us while we are away from Home. Let me assure you that all of our pets, and animals of every kind will be with us for eternity on the Other Side. The more painful it is, tragically, the more you do learn, though, that's the good part. The weeds keep multiplying in our garden, which is our mind ruled by fear. Rip them out and call them by name. What age is the spirit? Thirty. All thirty. When I found this out, I said, Why 30? Why not 40? Why not 50? Why not 12? It just happens to be 30.	Sylvia	Browne	128
If you would be a real seeker after truth it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.	René	Descartes	129
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.	Marie	Curie	130
Science is simply common sense at its best – that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.	Thomas Henry	Huxley	131 200
An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.	Max	Planck	132
Why are things as they are and not otherwise?	Johannes	Kepler	133
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.	H. L	Mencken	134
I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.	Albert	Einstein	135
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.	Isaac	Asimov	136
There is a single light of Science and to brighten anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.	Isaac	Asimov	137
When a man finds a conclusion agreeable, he accepts it without argument, but when he finds it disagreeable, he will bring against it all the forces of logic and reason.	Thucydides	Thucydides Thucydides	138
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.	Arthur C	Clarke	139
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.	Neil	Armstrong	140
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.	Hippocrates	Hippocrates Hippocrates	141 265
There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility.	Jacob	Bronowski	143
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.	Mahatma	Gandhi	144
Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.	Arthur	Schopenhauer	145
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.	Sherlock	Holmes	146
I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.	James	Garfield	147
Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. That is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast on nature.	Jacob	Bronowski	148
The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.	Aristotle	Aristotle Aristotle	149
A popular feel for scientific endeavors should, if possible, be restored given the needs of the twenty-first century. This does not mean that every literature major should take a watered-down physics course or that a corporate lawyer should stay abreast of quantum mechanics. Rather, it means that an appreciation for the methods of science is a useful asset for a responsible citizenry. What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories, something well illustrated in Einstein's life.	Walter	Isaacson	150
If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.	Byron	Byron Lord Byron	151
Skeptical scrutiny is the means in both Science and Religion by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.	Carl	Sagan	152
I deny nothing, but doubt everything.	Byron	Byron Lord Byron	153
I can't believe it. Maybe there is a God after all. Herbal supplement sales only grew 1 percent last year. The years before, it was 17 percent, 12 percent, 18 percent.	Dr. Dean	Edell	154
When did ignorance become a point of view?	Scott	Adams	155
If you believe everything you read, you better not read.	Japanese Proverb	Japanese Proverb Japanese Proverb	156
We despise all reverences and all the objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our own list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us.	Mark	Twain	157
Science is the poetry of reality.	Richard	Dawkins	159
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.	Plato	Plato Plato	160 208
To defy the authority of empirical evidence is to disqualify oneself as someone worthy of critical engagement in a dialogue.	Dalai	Dalai The 14th Dalai Lama	161
Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough.	Ibn	al-Haytham	162
The wise skeptic does not teach doubt but how to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting.	Ralph Waldo	Emerson	164
When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.	David	Hume	165 195 220
...I think the popular view of Science is a solid body of truth, shared by a whole lot of learned men in a room, all agreeing on the answers to the questions of how the Universe works. Whereas nothing could be further from the truth !!! The one truth that I see emerging from the History of Science is that experiment has always surprised theorists. Einstein included!	Dr. Brian	May	166
The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.	Charles	Darwin	167
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.	Henri	Poincaré	168
There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.	Enrico	Fermi	170
We need science, more and better science, not for its technology, not for leisure, not even for health or longevity, but for the hope of wisdom which our kind of culture must acquire for its survival.	Dr. Lewis	Thomas	171
A certain portion of the human race has certainly a taste for being diddled.	Thomas	Hood	172
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.	Bertrand	Russell	173
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.	Pearl S	Buck	174
Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.	Letitia E	Landon	175
Instead of calling it worthless Chinese energy piece of crap, I'm gonna keep it simple and call it chi. Live with it.	Marc	Crislip	176
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.	Dr. Thomas	Fuller	177
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?	John Maynard	Keynes	178
The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.	Leonardo	da Vinci	179
You see, I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing, than to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure about anything, and many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask, "why are we here?"... But I don't have to have an answer; I don't feel frightened by not knowing things.	Richard	Feynman	181
No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.	Sigmund	Freud	182
The scientific tradition is distinguished from the pre-scientific tradition in having two layers. Like the latter, it passes on its theories; but it also passes on a critical attitude towards them. The theories are passed on, not as dogmas, but rather with the challenge to discuss them and improve upon them.	Sir Karl	Popper	183 187
I'm very scared to do it. What if I don't come back? With the whole light-years thing, what if I come back 10,000 years later, and everyone I know is dead? I'll be like, 'Great. Now I have to start all over'.	Paris	Hilton	183
Truth, sir, is a cow that will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.	Samuel	Johnson	184
I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.	Marcus Tullius	Cicero	185
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.	Incorrectly attributed to Charles	Darwin	186
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.	Incorrectly attributed to Charles	Darwin	186
Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.	Galileo	Galilei	188 233 325
I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughtnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, 'Don't even act like I didn't get that doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D"'	Mitch	Hedberg	189
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.	Frank	Herbert	191
She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.	Jean Paul	Sartre	192
I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.	Samuel	Johnson	193
To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing.	Hypatia	Hypatia Hypatia of Alexandria	194
Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.	Hypatia	Hypatia Hypatia of Alexandria	194
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.	Mark	Twain	196
Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.	Bernard	Baruch	197
Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.	Thomas	Jefferson	198
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.	Buddha	Buddha Buddha	199
Some people try to tell me that science will never answer the big questions we have in life. To them I say: baloney! The real problem is your questions aren’t big enough.	Phil	Plait	202
Even if you can’t imagine the explanation, Sister, remember there are things beyond your knowledge. Even if you feel certainty, it is an emotion, not a fact.	Flynn	Flynn Father Flynn	207
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.	Thomas	Jefferson	209
Your victim was smothered. That's not opinion. That's science and science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14-inch strap-on.	Vincent	Masuka	211
There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.	Carl	Sagan	213
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.	Galileo	Galilei	214
You look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralizing invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separate from everyday existence. But science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.	Rosalind	Franklin	215
Skeptics...pfft! They only believe in science.	Anonymous	Anonymous Anonymous DragonCon Loser	216
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.	Christopher	Hitchens	217
When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra.	Theodore E	Woodward	219
The universe doesn't give a f*** about you. You're a speck in this shit.	Shit	Shit Shit my dad says	221
Doubt, skepticism, innovation, and inquiry are the only means by which wonder, beauty, awe, and symmetry will be discovered.	Christopher	Hitchens	222
If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.	Marcus	Aurelius	223
The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.	Miguel	de Unamuno	224
I believe that through its rational evaluation of truth and indifference to personal belief, science transcends religious and political divisions and so does bind us into a greater, more resilient whole.	Brian	Greene	225
No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar.	Donald	Foster	226
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.	Marie	Curie	228
Science makes a lousy religion and religion makes a lousy science.	Linda	Rosa	229
Weary the path that does not challenge. Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leadeth the way.	Hosea	Ballou	235
One special advantage of the skeptical attitude of mind is that a man is never vexed to find that after all he has been in the wrong.	Sir William	Osler	236
It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follow[s] from the advance of science.	Charles	Darwin	237
The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.	Delos B	McKown	238
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.	Thomas	Paine	239
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.	Mark	Twain	240
The only new ideas that are not subject to our skepticism or suspicion are our own.	Cullen	Hightower	241
Large skepticism leads to large understanding. Small skepticism leads to small understanding. No skepticism leads to no understanding.	Xi	Zhi	242
The best substitute for brains is silence.	Unknown	Unknown Unknown	243
To science, not even the bark of a tree or a drop of pond water is dull or a handful of dirt banal. They all arouse awe and wonder.	Jane	Jacobs	244
My brain is the key that sets my mind free.	Harry	Houdini	245
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.	Henri	Poincaré	246
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.	Arthur C	Clarke	247
Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.	Richard	Dawkins	248
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge; and its nature is sinned against when it is drowned in ignorance.	William	Channing	249
You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right.	Randall "xkcd"	Monroe	250
For a scientist must indeed be freely imaginative and yet skeptical, creative and yet a critic. There is a sense in which he must be free, but another in which his thought must be very precisely regimented; there is poetry in science, but also a lot of bookkeeping.	Sir Peter B	Medawar	251
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.	George Bernard	Shaw	252
Imagination is as vital to any advance in science as learning and precision are essential for starting points.	Percival	Lowell	253
Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals - the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.	Martin	Gardner	254
Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth.	Claudius	Ptolemy	255
Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete, and that there are no new worlds to conquer.	Sir Humphrey	Davy	256
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.	Sir Winston	Churchill	257
...owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.	Christopher	Hitchens	258
Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.	Albert	Einstein	259
Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. Nearly all men of science, all men of learning for that matter, and men of simple ways too, have it in some form and in some degree. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can define its limits, or set its ultimate boundaries.	Vannevar	Bush	260
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.	Bertrand	Russell	261
I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run. He's fuzzy. Get outta here!	Mitch	Hedberg	262
The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.	John	Cleese	263
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert.	Anon	Anon Anon	264
You know that chemistry has an impact on your daily life, but the extent of that impact can be mind-boggling. Consider just the beginning of a typical day from a chemical point of view. Molecules align in the liquid crystal display of your clock, electrons flow through its circuitry to create a rousing sound, and you throw off a thermal insulator of manufactured polymer. You jump in the shower, to emulsify fatty substances on your skin and hair with chemically treated water and formulated detergents. You adorn yourself in an array of processed chemicals - pleasant-smelling pigmented materials suspended in cosmetic gels, dyed polymeric fibers, synthetic footware, and metal-alloyed jewelry. Today, breakfast is a bowl of nutrient-enriched, spoilage-retarded cereal and milk, a piece of fertilizer-grown, pesticide-treated fruit, and a cup of a hot, aqueous solution of neurally stimulating alkaloid. Ready to leave, you collect some books - processed cellulose and plastic, electrically printed with light-and-oxygen-resistant inks - hop in your hydrocarbon-fuelled metal-vinyl-ceramic vehicle, electrically ignite a synchronized series of controlled, gaseous explosions, and you're off to class!	Martin S	Silberberg	266
The correspondence between reality and my beliefs comes from reality controlling my beliefs, not the other way around.	Eliezer S	Yudkowsky	267
You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you're forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything you did was great, when in fact some parts may not have worked at all. Failure forces you to face reality.	Fred	Brooks	268
It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would set aside all the intellectual progress of years, and plunge us back into the darkness of mediaeval disbelief.	H. P	Lovecraft	269
Before we work on artificial intelligence why don't we do something about natural stupidity?	Steve	Polyak	270
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.	Albert	Einstein	271
I'm a Youth Worker with the Boys and Girls Club. Specifically I work with kids at an after school program. It was towards the end of the day and I was sitting with a small group of kids playing Apples to Apples. I forget what led up to it but a little boy says, "I believe in aliens." The little girl sitting next to me says, "Aliens haven't been proven yet. That's scientific!"	Anon	Anon Anon	272
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.	Anatole	France	274
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.	Stephen Jay	Gould	275
All scientific work is incomplete - whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that is appears to demand at a given time. "Who knows", asked Robert Browning, "but the world may end tonight? True, but on available evidence most of us make ready to commute on the 8:30 the next day."	Sir Austin Bradford	Hill	276
The World is full of wonders, but they become more Wonderful, not less Wonderful when Science looks at them.	Sir David	Attenborough	277
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.	Thomas	Paine	279
Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.	Bertrand	Russell	280
We work by exorcising incessant superstition that there are mysterious tribal gods against you. Nature has neither rewards nor punishments, only consequences. You can use science to make it work for you.	Edwin	Land	281
Everything alive will die someday. But in the meantime I got to see her smile, and that made it OK for awhile. To look into her eyes was worth the eventual demise of earth.	George	Hrab	282
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.	J. B. S	Haldane	283
I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.	Stephen Jay	Gould	284
Questioning our own motives, and our own process, is critical to a skeptical and scientific outlook. We must realize that the default mode of human psychology is to grab onto comforting beliefs for purely emotional reasons, and then justify those beliefs to ourselves with post-hoc rationalizations. It takes effort to rise above this tendency, to step back from our beliefs and our emotional connection to conclusions and focus on the process. The process (i.e science, logic, and intellectual rigor) has to be more important than the belief.	Steven	Novella	285
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.	P. C	Hodgell	286
Reality has been around since long before you showed up. Don't go calling it nasty names like 'bizarre' or 'incredible'. The universe was propagating complex amplitudes through configuration space for ten billion years before life ever emerged on Earth. Quantum physics is not 'weird'. You are weird.	Eliezer S	Yudkowsky	287
The tough mind is sharp and penetrating, breaking through the crust of legends and myths and sifting the true from the false. Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.	Dr. Martin Luther	King, Jr	288
Anecdotal evidence leads us to conclusions that we wish to be true, not conclusions that actually are true.	Barry	Beyerstein	289
Oh, the truth, oh yeah, lot of trouble that got us into, didn't it, over the last maybe thousand years? Hitler knew the truth, so did Stalin, so did Mao Zedong, so did the Inquisition. They all knew the truth and that caused such horror. Certainty is the enemy.	Sir Anthony	Hopkins	290
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.	Leo	Tolstoy	291
Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.	Ayn	Rand	292
Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.	Carl	Sagan	293
God give me the wisdom to see the truth however contrary to my established beliefs.	Robert	Quillen	294
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.	T. S	Elliot	294
The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.	Ferdinand	Magellan	295
An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination.	Andrew	Lang	296
Galileo was a man of science oppressed by the irrational and superstitious. Today, he is used by the irrational and the superstitious who say they are being oppressed by science. So 1984.	Marc	Crislip	297
There are two sources of error: Either you lack sufficient data, or you fail to take advantage of the data that you have	Bryan	Caplan	298
If an outsider perceives 'something wrong' with a core scientific model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider should be to ask 'what mistake am I making?' before assuming 100% of the experts are wrong.	David	Brin	299
You can't believe everything you read on the internet.	Abraham	Lincoln	300
I think that it is much more likely, that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence, rather than the unknown rational efforts of extraterrestrial intelligence.	Richard	Feynman	301
Thinking is skilled work. It is not true that we are naturally endowed with the ability to think clearly and logically—without learning how, or without practicing… People with untrained minds should no more expect to think clearly and logically than people who have never learned and never practiced can expect to find themselves good carpenters, golfers, bridge-players, or pianists.	Alfred	Mander	302
I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.	Robert	Saplosky	303
Homeopathy is the idea that we just cured the world of terrorism by dumping Osama's corpse in the ocean.	Sean	Mcfly	304
I believed in reincarnation in my last life but I'm not to sure about it in this one.	Stephanie	Beach	304
I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.	Stephen	Hawking	305
The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.	Dr. Lewis	Thomas	306
It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.	Margaret	Fuller	307
Seeing is not believing; believing is seeing! You see things, not as they are, but as you are.	Eric	Butterworth	308
In cases where prior knowledge is available, the alternative to 'an open mind' is not a 'closed mind'. It is 'an informed mind'. In such contexts, any appeal to 'keep an open mind' is an appeal to prefer ignorance over knowledge. This is not advisable.	Ian	Rowland	309
If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another, and science will do for them all they wish and more than they can dream.	Sir Winston	Churchill	311
If agricultural land be left uncultivated, in a few years the jungle returns, and signs are not lacking that a similar danger is always lying in wait for the fields of thought, which, by the labour of three hundred years, have been cleared and brought into cultivation by men of science. The destruction of a very small percentage of the population would suffice to annihilate scientific knowledge, and lead us back to almost universal belief in magic, witchcraft and astrology.	Sir William Cecil	Dampier	312
When you know the answer you want, it is often all too easy to figure out a way of getting it.	Brian	Greene	313
Science is the best thing that humanity has ever come up with. And if it isn't, then science will fix it.	Bill	Nye	314
A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there’s no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?	Dr. Manhattan	Dr. Manhattan Dr. Manhattan	315
I have something to say. It's better to burn out than to fade away.	Kurgan	Kurgan The Kurgan	316
And when we die our empty bodies turn to dust There'll be no pit of fire No angels singing songs for us There's nothing we can say that people won't forget some day There's nothing we can do that matters/And that's okay.	Limousines	Limousines From 'The Future' by The Limousines	317
Don't be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, and a treasure you can always carry easily.	Cheap	Cheap Cheap fortune cookie	318
Science is like a blabbermouth that ruins the end of a movie. Well I say there are things we don't want the answers to. Important things.	Ned	Flanders	319
The difference between faith and insanity is that faith is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence, whereas insanity is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence.	William	Harwood	320
I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, blown and flared by passion’s storm, and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish and and naught remain.	Robert	Ingersoll	321
Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds... to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.	Ellison S	Onizuka	323
Imagination should give wings to our thoughts but we always need decisive experimental proof, and when the moment comes to draw conclusions and to interpret the gathered observations, imagination must be checked and documented by the factual results of the experiment.	Louis	Pasteur	326
How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces...they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals--anything or anyone--but never themselves.	James	Clavell	327
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.	Michelangelo	Michelangelo Michelangelo	327
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".	Isaac	Asimov	328 341
The advance of scientific knowledge does not seem to make either our universe or our inner life in it any less mysterious	J. B. S	Haldane	329
Questioner: As a scientist, would you deny the possibility of water having been changed into wine in the Bible? CS: Deny the possibility? Certainly not. I would not deny any such possibility. But I would, of course, not spend a moment on it unless there was some evidence for it.	Carl	Sagan	330
Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise.	Ivan	Pavlov	331
At every croasroads on the road that leads to the future, tradition has placed against us ten thousand men to guard the past.	Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard	Maeterlinck	332
In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men (and women) of flesh and blood. (written by William Safire)	Richard	Nixon	333
The scientific method consists of the use of procedures designed to show not that our predictions and hypotheses are right, but that they might be wrong. Scientific reasoning is useful to anyone in any job because it makes us face the possibility, even the dire reality, that we were mistaken. It forces us to confront our self-justifications and put them on public display for others to puncture. At its core, therefore, science is a form of arrogance control.	Carol	Tavris	334
Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.	Jean Paul	Sartre	335
The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.	Christopher	Hitchens	336
To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.	Thomas Henry	Huxley	337
Where there is shouting there is no true knowledge.	Leonardo	da Vinci	339
As I look back on nearly half a century of research, I am struck by the fact that my life in science has never proceeded along a straight line toward a goal, but in a series of steps in different and unexpected directions. It reminds me of the walks I loved to take in Paris- not journeys toward a particular goal, but random strolls that were directed, at each corner, by the curious or beautiful that appeared down one street or the other. I think it’s a good way to explore and a great way to live.	K. E	van Holde	340
…if we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition – even when it seems to be doing a little good – we abet a general climate in which skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent balance takes wisdom.	Carl	Sagan	342
Feminism is best served by embracing reality, by thinking critically, and advancing rational arguments. This sloppy Newage shit-slurry of ingenuous gullibility is pure poison to the cause.	P. Z	Myers	343
It is a truly wonderful fact – the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity – that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group.	Charles	Darwin	344
How weak our mind is; how quickly it is terrified and unbalanced as soon as we are confronted with a small, incomprehensible fact. Instead of dismissing the problem with: ‘We do not understand because we cannot find the cause,’ we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers.	Henri René Albert Guy	de Maupassant	346
You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown– only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.	Captain James T	Kirk	347
Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgements can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.	Richard	Feynman	348
Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers.	Bernhard	Haisch	349
Fear believes, courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays. Courage stands erect and thanks. Fear is barbarism. Courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion. Courage is science.	Robert	Ingersoll	350
If a man, holding a belief, which he was taught in childhood, or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men who call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it, the life of that man is one long sin against mankind	William K	Clifford	351
One sure mark of a fool is to dismiss anything outside his experience as being impossible.	Farengar	Secret-Fire	352
Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.	Leo	Rosten	353
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynisism by those who have not got it.	George Bernard	Shaw	354
The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.	Carl	Sagan	355
Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin	Thomas Henry	Huxley	356
You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.	Benjamin	Graham	357
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.	Richard	Feynman	358
The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.	Daniel J.	Boorstin	359
The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible.	Ray	Bradbury	360
Science does not aim at establishing immutable truths and eternal dogmas; its aim is to approach the truth by successive approximations, without claiming that at any stage final and complete accuracy has been achieved.	Bertrand	Russell	361
I believe in nothing, never have, never will. What matters is what I can see, hear, smell, taste, touch. Tangible things, physical things, reality. The rest is imagination.	Wolverine	Wolverine Wolverine	362
Ripley: Ash, can you hear me? Ash? Ash: [speaking in an electronic, distorted voice] Yes, I can hear you. Ripley: What was your special order? Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear. Ripley: What was it? Ash: Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded. Parker: The damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch? Ash: I repeat, all other priorities are rescinded. Ripley: How do we kill it, Ash? There's gotta be a way of killing it. How? How do we do it? Ash: You can't. Parker: That's bullshit. Ash: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. Lambert: You admire it. Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. Parker: Look, I am... I've heard enough of this, and I'm asking you to pull the plug. Ash: [Ripley goes to disconnect Ash, who interrupts] Last word. Ripley: What? Ash: I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies.	Alien	Alien Scene from the movie Alien	363
I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.	Stephen	Hawking	364
The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death--however mutable man may be able to make them--our existence as a species can have a genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.	Stanley	Kubrick	365
Sometimes, even by accident, the universe makes beauty, and we can stand back in awe of it. Even better - we can figure out why. Science! I love this stuff.	Phil	Plait	366
Homeopaths do not have a physical brain, but merely 'skull water' with the memory of brains.	Robin	Ince	367
Yes, there is a conspiracy, indeed there are a great number of conspiracies, all tripping each other up… the main thing that I learned about conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in the conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy, or the grey aliens, or the twelve-foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control, the truth is far more frightening; no-one is in control, the world is rudderless.	Alan	Moore	368
One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.	Malcolm	Muggeridge	369
For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.	Benjamin	Franklin	370
Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.	Friedrich	Nietzsche	371