“Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history?”

—  Dan Brown , book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that hum…" by Dan Brown?
Dan Brown photo
Dan Brown 135
American author 1964

Related quotes

Adolphe Quetelet photo

“It is a remarkable fact in the history of science, that the more extended human knowledge has become, the more limited human power, in that respect, has constantly appeared.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Context: It is a remarkable fact in the history of science, that the more extended human knowledge has become, the more limited human power, in that respect, has constantly appeared. This globe, of which man imagines the haughty possessor, becomes, in the eyes of astronomer, merely a grain of dust floating in immensity of space: an earthquake, a tempest, an inundation, may destroy in an instant an entire people, or ruin the labours of twenty ages.... But if each step in the career of science thus gradually diminishes his importance, his pride has a compensation in the greater idea of his intellectual power, by which he has been enabled to perceive those laws which seem to be, by their nature, placed for ever beyond his grasp.

Buckminster Fuller photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo
John F. Kennedy photo
John Lanchester photo

“We are more connected in more ways to more people than we ever have been at any point in human history. This is changing everything, and it would be deeply strange if it didn’t change money too.”

John Lanchester (1962) British writer

When Bitcoin Grows Up https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n08/john-lanchester/when-bitcoin-grows-up (April 21, 2016), The London Review of Books

Richard Bach photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“We have now a science called astronomy. That science has done more to enlarge the horizon of human thought than all things else.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: We have now a science called astronomy. That science has done more to enlarge the horizon of human thought than all things else. We now live in an infinite universe. We know that the sun is a million times larger than our earth, and we know that there are other great luminaries millions of times larger than our sun. We know that there are planets so far away that light, traveling at the rate of one hundred and eighty- five thousand miles a second, requires fifteen thousand years to reach this grain of sand, this tear, we call the earth -- and we now know that all the fields of space are sown thick with constellations. If that statute had been enforced, that science would not now be the property of the human mind. That science is contrary to the Bible, and for asserting the truth you become a criminal. For what sum of money, for what amount of wealth, would the world have the science of astronomy expunged from the brain of man? We learned the story of the stars in spite of that statute.

Julie Taymor photo

“The artist has the possibility to create a much larger landscape with puppetry. The human becomes more human in that sense.”

Julie Taymor (1952) American film and theatre director

As quoted in "New York at Work; Puppeteer Creates Shows for Grown-Ups" by N. R. Kleinfield The New York Times (2 July 1991) http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/02/nyregion/new-york-at-work-puppeteer-creates-shows-for-grown-ups.html
Context: We have a ways to go in understanding the power of puppetry … Our problem is for too long we have thought of puppets being for children. … The appeal of puppetry to me is it's much more freeing for an artist … Puppetry is a completely controllable means to attack your characters in every possible way. The artist has the possibility to create a much larger landscape with puppetry. The human becomes more human in that sense. Another of the great things about puppetry is the ability to transform.

Peter Sloterdijk photo

“Cynicism is enlightened false consciousness. It is that modernized, unhappy consciousness, on which enlightenment has labored both successfully and in vain. It has learned its lessons in enlightenment, but it has not, and probably was not able to, put them into practice. Well-off and miserable at the same time, this consciousness no longer feels affected by any critique of ideology; its falseness is already reflexively buffered.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Zynismus ist das aufgeklärte falsche Bewußtsein, an dem Aufklärung zugleich erfolgreich und vergeblich gearbeitet hat. Es hat seine Aufklärungselektion gelernt, aber nicht vollzogen und wohl nicht vollziehen können. Gutsituiert und miserabel zugleich fühlt sich dieses Bewußtsein von keiner Ideologiekritik mehr betroffen; seine Falschheit ist bereits reflexiv gefedert.
Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), pp. 5-6

`Abdu'l-Bahá photo

“Humanity has emerged from its former degrees of limitation and preliminary training. Man must now become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moralities, new capacities.”

`Abdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921) Son of Bahá'u'lláh and leader of the Bahá'í Faith

"The True Modernism" http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/c/FWU/fwu-1.html
Foundations of World Unity
Context: Humanity has emerged from its former degrees of limitation and preliminary training. Man must now become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moralities, new capacities. New bounties, bestowals and perfections are awaiting and already descending upon him.

Related topics