“The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties.”

— Thomas Paine

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
Context: The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.

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Thomas Paine 262

English and American political activist 1737–1809

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