Only a well-rounded intellect, a spirit nourished in the eternal sources of intelligence and culture, of justice and wisdom, is a safeguard against both indifference and skepticism.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.
The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.
Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls.
The intellect of the wise is like glass; it admits the light of heaven and reflects it.
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.
Nothing but an imperious intellectual and moral necessity can drive into doubt a religious mind, for it is as though an earthquake shook the foundations of the soul, and the very being quivers and sways under the shock.
Everybody's part of the greater whole and skepticism and virtue are a part of that.
The intellect is a cold thing and a merely intellectual idea will never stimulate thought in the same manner that a spiritual idea does.
Skepticism: the mark and even the pose of the educated mind.
The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.