I am a skeptic about everything, including God and atheism. I am not c — Agnosticism

"As a matter of fact agnosticism is a theory of knowledge: it is defined as that theory of knowledge which ends in doubt, or disbelief of some or all of the powers of knowing possessed by the human mind. In a word, it is the opposite to gnosticism. Gnosticism attributed to the human mind a greater power of knowing than it actually possessed. Agnosticism denies to the human mind a power of attaining knowledge which it does possess. It is important to remember that agnosticism, as such, is a theory about knowledge and not about religion. This fact is frequently overlooked and the probe of empiric test confined illegitimately to the sphere of religious knowledge."

"Each person, then, is subject to two quite different requirements in connection with any proposition he considers: (1) he should try his best to bring it about that if that proposition is true then he believe it; and (2) he should try his best to bring it about that if that proposition is false then he not believe it. Each requirement by itself would be quite simple: to fulfill the first, our purely intellectual being could simply believe every proposition that comes along; to fulfill the second, he could refrain from believing any proposition that comes along. To fulfill both is more difficult. If he had only the second requirement—that of trying his best to bring it about that if a proposition is false then he not believe that proposition—then he could always play it safe and never act at all, doxastically. But sometimes more than just playing it safe is necessary if he is also to fulfill the first requirement: that of trying his best, with respect to the propositions he considers, to believe the ones that are true."

"Idealism in philosophy is a defence, sometimes extremely elaborate, sometimes less so, of clericalism, of a doctrine that places faith above science, or side by side with science, or in some way or another gives faith a place. Agnosticism (from the Greek words “a” no and “gnosis” knowledge) is vacillation between materialism and idealism, i.e., in practice it is vacillation between materialist science and clericalism."

"I say that I am an agnostic. People think thats pusillanimous and covering your bets. But its not based on any belief or yearning for an afterlife but on the fact that we actually know so little about the cosmos. It is a tribute to the complexity and, at our present stage of development, the unknowability of the universe."

"Belief is otiose; reality is sufficiently awesome as it stands."

"Clear views and certain," Mr. Thomas Hardy once wrote of his own agnosticism. Well, we cannot all have the certainty of agnostics."

"In the life of the mass-order, the culture of the generality tends to conform to the demands of the average human being. Spirituality decays through being diffused among the masses when knowledge is impoverished in every possible way by rationalisation until it becomes accessible to the crude understanding of all."

"I say this to you because we Spaniards are a forgetful people, because we are used to living for the moment, because we do not look back, because we do not know how to see the chain of heroes, because we do not contemplate the sum of sacrifices."

"Sharon Tate was my best friend. Once, we were roommates. She introduced me to my husband. She was the godmother to my baby daughter who is named for her. In the six years time that I knew her, she never said an unkind word about anyone."

"Long time to see. (VS: Tapion)"

"Most mathematicians prove what they can, von Neumann proves what he wants." Once in a discussion about the rapid growth of mathematics in modern times, von Neumann was heard to remark that whereas thirty years ago a mathematician could grasp all of mathematics, that is impossible today. Someone asked him: "What percentage of all mathematics might a person aspire to understand today?" Von Neumann went into one of his five-second thinking trances, and said: "About 28 percent."

"Children must be free to think in all directions irrespective of the peculiar ideas of parents who often seal their childrens minds with preconceived prejudices and false concepts of past generations. Unless we are very careful, very careful indeed, and very conscientious, there is still great danger that our children may turn out to be the same kind of people we are."