I really don’t believe in magic.

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow? If not, then why should this country bet billions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation?

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Science is magic that works.

Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons. I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.

I think any statement about stock prices is always suspect unless it’s made by Warren Buffett.

Yeah, it’s pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

In 1975, when my students were kidnapped by rebels, I was accused of hiding instead of trying to save them, and of not giving enough money for their ransom. I wasn’t believed.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the peoples believe less and less in statements and promises.

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors.

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

I read the NY Times but I don’t trust all of it.

I’m skeptical of any mission that has advertisers at its centerpiece.

No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.

In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can’t replace the magic of four people in a room playing.

There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

People love conspiracy theories.

I don’t believe in icons.

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.

All in all, I just don’t trust journalists – and I don’t think it’s a good practice for me to trust journalists.

I don’t believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

I haven’t trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I’ve never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.

I would love to encourage all my teammates to eat the best way they possibly can. High school athletes. Now, that’s not the way our food system in America is set up. It’s very different. They have a food pyramid, and I disagree with that. I disagree with a lot of things that people tell you to do.

All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

Today we say that the law of relativity is supposed to be true at all energies, but someday somebody may come along and say how stupid we were.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

Of course you can’t ‚trust‘ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‚trust‘ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do.

I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years.

I can make something magical and wonderful out of nothing.

Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.

A cynical young person is almost the saddest sight to see, because it means that he or she has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd.

I don’t consider myself to be that credulous.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

When I meet people who say – which they do all of the time – ‚I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,‘ and so forth, I switch off quite early.

I think I’ve really exhausted the magical. It was a lot of fun, but I’ve put it behind me for the time being.

Let no such man be trusted.

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

Trust, but verify.

I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I’m just a cold-blooded investigator.

I have no definite talent or trade, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking – it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.

I trust Russia and China and Iran and North Korea like I trust a Jussie Smollett police report.