Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that the belief in God is an inherent part of human nature and the order of the universe.
Voltaire's quote reflects on the necessity of the concept of God in human understanding and society. He articulates that even if God did not exist in reality, humanity would feel compelled to create this concept to make sense of the intelligence and order present in nature. The quote further emphasizes that the natural world reveals a higher power and intelligence, asserting humanity's reliance on this greater force.
Themes
GodNatureIntelligenceOrderDependence
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophical discussion on the existence of God, this quote could serve to illustrate the human inclination towards belief.
More from Voltaire
All quotes →He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
VoltaireRead
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
VoltaireRead
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
VoltaireRead
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
VoltaireRead
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
VoltaireRead
Similar quotes
But this people has deliberately made itself stupid, for nearly a millennium: nowhere have the two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity, been abused more dissolutely.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.
Steven WeinbergRead
The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.
Carl JungRead
I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.
Virginia WoolfRead
So, to say Barack Obama is progress is saying that he's the first black person that is qualified to be president. That's not black progress. That's white progress.
Chris RockRead
If we had to preach to thousands year after year, and never rescued but one soul, that one soul would be a full reward for all our labour, for a soul is of countless price.
Charles SpurgeonRead