Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the concept of God is essential for human existence, even if God didn't exist originally.
Voltaire's quote implies that the idea of God serves a crucial function in human society, providing meaning, morality, and hope. It reflects on the human need for higher purpose and the way in which people may create beliefs or deities to fulfill that intrinsic desire for understanding and order in life.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion on the role of religion in culture.
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be ADOPTION THROUGH PROPITIATION, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.
The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.
One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty.
Privilege (to the privileged) means having private laws.
I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.
I was Catholic. You talk about a minority within a minority within a minority: a black Catholic in Savannah, GA.
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