“I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced. But men are better than this theology.”

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson

A statement in this passage is sometimes paraphrased: "Men are better than their theology."
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced. But men are better than this theology. Their daily life gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without after-thought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to make his own statement.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

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