Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nature doesn't cheat - people do.
The market for nonsense is infinite.
Death is the ultimate disappointment
I would put my million dollars up as well.
No amount of belief makes something a fact.
Feeling better is not actually being better.
Everyone who believes in telekinesis, raise my hand.
Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.
No matter how smart or well-educated you are, you can be deceived.
gods are children's blankets that get carried over into adulthood.
I want to be cremated, and I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes.
I can go into a lab and fool the rear ends off any group of scientists.
Heroin also makes people feel better, but I wouldn't recommend using heroin.
The New Age? Its just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds.
The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds.
We owe it to our kids to inform them and train them how to think, not what to think.
People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave.
However, I believe that it would be difficult to have legitimate scientists agree to participate.
We have fought long and hard to escape from medieval superstition. I, for one, do not wish to go back.
There's something about the Houdini act that is not always made clear - about the escape act in general.
I am in a very peculiar business: I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know.
Magicians are the most honest people in the world; they tell you they're gonna fool you, and then they do it.
No evidence against a firmly-held belief, no matter how good or abundant it may be, will sway the true believer.
Blind belief can be comforting, but it can easily cripple reason and productivity, and stop intellectual progress.
To recognize that nature has neither a preference for our species nor a bias against it takes only a little courage.
Uri Geller may have psychic powers by means of which he can bend spoons; if so, he appears to be doing it the hard way.
There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.
I don't expect that the million will ever be won, simply because there is no confirming evidence for any paranormal claims to date.
A quick example of that is a woman who said she'd been healed of throat cancer where the faith healer admitted he touched her on the forehead.
I do not expect that homeopathy will ever be established as a legitimate form of treatment, but I do expect that it will continue to be popular.
The problem with experiments has always been that human beings make the decisions on whether or not the animals have benefitted from the treatment.
One thing that has made a big comeback just recently is this business of speaking with the dead. To my innocent mind, 'dead' implies incapable of communicating.
They would have been very let down if they had to leave the theater and he had missed. He would feel badly. Everyone would feel badly. But he never let them down.
The only difference is that religion is much better organised and has been around much longer, but it's the same story with different characters and different costumes.
The only difference is that religion is much better organized and has been around much longer, but it's the same story with different characters and different costumes.
Expose every belief to the light of reason, discourse, facts, scientific observations; question everything, be sceptical because this is the only chance at life you will ever get.
I was not surprised by the results of the Horizon experiments, but I remain willing to observe and consider any and all other tests that are done under similarly precise conditions.
Nostradamus himself confessed that the vague manner in which he wrote his "prophecies" was so that 'they could not possibly be understood until they were interpreted after the event and by it.'
I questioned her further, and eventually got to talk to her doctor. And her doctor sort of shook his head and he said, I have examined her for throat cancer at least 15 times in the past few years.
I questioned her further, and eventually got to talk to her doctor. And her doctor sort of shook his head and he said, 'I have examined her for throat cancer at least 15 times in the past few years.
I believe in the basic goodness of my species, because that appears to be a positive tactic and quality that leads to better chances of survival- and in spite of our foolishness, we seem to have survived.
[Psychics] use exactly the same gimmicks that we magicians do - the same physical methods, the same psychological methods - and they effectively and profoundly deceive millions of people around the earth, to their detriment.
Paranormal phenomena have a habit of going away whenever they are tested under rigorous conditions. This is why the $1,000,000 reward of James Randi, offered to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal effect under proper scientific controls, is safe.
The conjuror or con man is a very good provider of information. He supplies lots of data, by inference or direct statement, but it's false data. Scientists aren't used to that scenario. An electron or a galaxy is not capricious, nor deceptive; but a human can be either or both.
Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence.
Escapology has one thing going for it that probably made Harry Houdini such a superstar in his day and a legend in the present. Everyone wants to escape from something. Taxes, contracts, illness, work, the multitude of burdens that we chafe under are shadows from which we want to escape.
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.
To make sure that my blasphemy is thoroughly expressed, I hereby state my opinion that the notion of a god is a basic superstition, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god(s), that devils, demons, angels and saints are myths, that there is no life after death, heaven nor hell, that the Pope is a dangerous, bigoted, medieval dinosaur, and that the Holy Ghost is a comic-book character worthy of laughter and derision.
Religion is based upon blind faith supported by no evidence. Science is based upon confidence that results from evidence - and that confidence can be modified and/or reversed by further observations and experimentation. Science approaches truth, closer and closer, by hard dedicated work. Religion already has it all decided, and it's in the book. It's dogma, unchangeable, and unaffected by reality and whatever facts we come upon in the real world.
... We in the USA have been depending on prayers, pleading, and self-abasement to a deity to bring us magical advantages, and have been encouraged to attribute our prosperity and general success among nations, to that sort of action. In my opinion, hard work and dedication to logic and reason ought to be recognized as the reasons for our achievements, not appeals to a mythical friend-in-the-sky. We got where we are in spite of, not because of, those incantations.