“Religious minds prefer scepticism. The true saint is a profound sceptic; a total disbeliever in human reason, who has more than once joined hands on this ground with some who were at best sinners.”
Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
Context: In every age man has been apt to dream uneasily, rolling from side to side, beating against imaginary bars, unless tired out he has sunk into indifference or scepticism. Religious minds prefer scepticism. The true saint is a profound sceptic; a total disbeliever in human reason, who has more than once joined hands on this ground with some who were at best sinners. Bernard was a total disbeliever in scholasticism; so was Voltaire.
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Henry Adams 311
journalist, historian, academic, novelist 1838–1918Related quotes
L'Unité d'un Homme (November 1994), quoted in The Times (21 November 1994), p. 11
President of the European Commission
Only the Good Die Young.
Song lyrics, The Stranger (1977)
“A saint is a sinner who loves; it's that simple!”
Attributed to Catherine Doherty in Inflamed by Love by Jean Fox
Attributed
“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.”
Variant: I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
George Boole (1851), "The Claims of Science, especially as founded in its relation to Human Nature". Published in Boole, GeorgeStudies in Logic and Probability. 2002. p. 201-202
1850s
Context: The scepticism of the ancient world left no department of human belief unassailed. It took its chief stand upon the conflicting nature of the impressions of the senses, but threw the dark shade of uncertainty over the most settled convictions of the mind; over men's belief in an external world, over their consciousness of their own existence. But this form of doubt was not destined to endure. Science, in removing the contradictions of sense, and establishing the consistent uniformity of natural law, took away the main pillars of its support. The spirit, however, and the mental habits of which it was the roduct, still survive; but not among the votaries of science. For I cannot but regard it as the same spirit which, with whatever profession of zeal, and for whatever ends of supposed piety or obedience, strives to subvertthe natural evidences of morals, - the existence of a Supreme Intelligent Cause. There is a scepticism which repudiates all belief; there is also a scepticism which seeks to escape from itself by a total abnegation of the understanding, and which, in the pride of its new-found security, would recklessly destroy every internal ground of humant trust and hope... Now to this, as to a former development of the sceptical spirit, Science stands in implied but real antagonism.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 128.
The Enemies of Reason, "The Irrational Health Service"
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)
Anti-Religious Thought In The Eighteenth Century http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/anti_religious_thought.txt; first published in "An Outline of Christianity : The Story of our Civilization", Vol. IV, Christianity and Modern Thought (1926)