Charlie Brooker Quotes

The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.

Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.

There are only two things one has to bear in mind. One has to be credulous - able to believe - and skeptical - able to not believe, because if you are not skeptical, you will believe rubbish. If you are not credulous you will learn nothing and the only way to balance those two is to recognize the mystery of things.

In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.

Believing isn't thinking, but we've been programmed to believe that believing is thinking. To use our intelligence to think means we're keeping the energy active, we're thinking, we're really using the power of our intelligence in a thinking way. But when we've been programmed to believe, we're no longer thinking, because energy flows.

Science is a method, not a religion, yet it can be just as close-minded. Open minds here Claire. Always open minds. Question everything, accept nothing as fact until you prove it for yourself.

The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.

It is no sin to doubt some things, but it may be fatal to believe everything.

Critical thinking is to a liberal education as faith is to religion. ... the converse was true also - faith is to a liberal education as critical thinking is to religion, irrelevant and even damaging.

He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.

Believing in everything looks a lot like believing in nothing.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant.

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

Credulity without enquiry is a sure way to deceive oneself.

Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.

I believe that people should be able to question things.

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.

He that believes all misseth; he that believes nothing, hits not.

Buddhism strongly discourages blind faith and fanaticism.

Incredulity is not wisdom.

Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.

Of all the weaknesses little men rail against, there is none that they are more apt to ridicule than the tendency to believe. And of all the signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble head, the tendency of incredulity is the surest. Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny.

Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.