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
With all the other -isms that we deal with, that sort of nameless -ism that we have in too many of our hearts against the poor in this country is what wounds us most broadly.
Benjamin Todd JealousRead
The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
Billy GrahamRead
Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.
Aldous HuxleyRead
It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.
Samuel JohnsonRead
Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being.
R. D. LaingRead
It’s true that someone will always say that good and evil don’t exist: that is a person who has never had any dealings with real evil. Good is far less convincing than evil, but it’s because their chemical structures are different. Like gold, good is never found in a pure state in nature: it therefore doesn’t seem impressive. It has the unfortunate tendency not to act; it prefers, passively, to be seen.
Amelie NothombRead