For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
Interpretation
Religious beliefs can be beneficial if accepted wholeheartedly, but questioning or dissecting them may lead to spiritual doubt or rejection.
In this quote, Thomas Hobbes compares religious beliefs to wholesome pills that have the power to heal when taken in their entirety. He suggests that just as pills should be swallowed whole for their medicinal value, faith and religious teachings are most effective when accepted without doubt or skepticism; when questioned or analyzed too closely, they often lose their potency and are rejected.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the importance of unwavering faith, this quote can illustrate the need for trust in religious teachings.
Baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God, that is to say, into Eternal life, that is to say, to Remission of Sin. For as Eternal life was lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's sins.
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels.
For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.
How can a speck of a universe be physically identical to the great expanse we view in the heavens above?
That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
Countless religious innovators over the years have played the game of establishing an identity for themselves by accentuating their otherness.
In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us.
I think that knowledge enslaves us, that at the base of all knowledge there is a servility, the acceptation of a way of life wherein each moment has meaning only in relation to another or others that will follow it.
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