“Latter-day scepticism is fond of calling itself progressive; but scepticism is really reactionary. Scepticism goes back; it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its plough, it simply tries to break up the plough.”

“don’t confuse scepticism as an attitude, or a method, with scepticism as a philosophy. Socrates was sceptical in temperament, and his method was to question everything. But he believed in absolute truth; he was no sceptic.”

“What of Art?-It is a malady.--Love?-An Illusion.--Religion?-The fashionable substitute for Belief.--You are a sceptic.-Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.--What are you?-To define is to limit.”

“Nothing strengthens the case for scepticism more than the fact that there are people who are not sceptics. If they all were, they would be wrong.”

“If you’re only sceptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything. You become a crochety misanthrope convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) Since major discoveries in the borderlines of science are rare, experience will tend to confirm your grumpiness. But every now and then a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you’re too resolutely and uncompromisingly sceptical, you’re going to miss (or resent) the transforming discoveries in science, and either way you will be obstructing understanding and progress. Mere scepticism is not enough.”

“Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence.”