Of the importance of religious opinions

My thoughts having been detached from the study and disquisition of those truths which have the political good of the state for their object; and being no longer obliged to fix...

It was reserved, particularly for some writers of our age, to attack even the utility of religion; and to seek to substitute, instead of its active influence, the inanimate inst...

In order to attack this truth, let it not be said, that the idea of a God is of all others the most incomprehensible; and if it is possible to derive useful instruction from so...

It is, undoubtedly, because a similar authority appears absolutely necessary to the maintenance of public order, that several philosophic writers have endeavoured to introduce i...

I shall conclude this part of my subject by one reflection more; supposing, even in the sovereign authority, an exertion sufficiently general to prevent or repress evil, religio...

We ought, at first, to observe, that the existence of this excellent innate goodness has been a long time a subject of debate, as every assertion always will be, of which we can...

If such is, however, our moral nature, that the object of our wishes will always be at some distance; if our thoughts, like the course of the waves, are ever active, and pressin...

Well, I make another effort, and I address myself to you, who boast of being enlightened by a fresh ray of wisdom. I am lost in the most profound grief; a father, a mother, who...

I will acknowledge, that at the point of elevation, where kings find themselves placed, they ought not to be acquainted with those passions which proceed from our petty competit...

Throwing then a painful retrospect on the period of history, when religion was made the pretext of wars and cruelty; let us oppose to the return of those sanguinary scenes, let...

It is on the consideration of detached events; it is in some particular circumstances, that we raise doubts about the goodness of God; but we immediately discern it when we comp...

But do we not, you may add, see that God does not interfere in any manner to direct things here below: you do not perceive Him; but do you more clearly discover the power which...

We cannot profoundly meditate on the marvellous attributes of thought; we cannot attentively contemplate the vast empire which has been submitted to it, or reflect on the facult...

What a source of reflections is this dominion of the mind over the most dreadful effects of the movement of blind matter. It seems as if the Supreme Being, in submitting thus to...

It is not indifferent to observe, that according to the system I combat, the more the world would appear to us the admirable result of wisdom, the less power should we have to d...

It is not at first conceivable, how our past discoveries, and all those which may in future enrich the human mind, would ever free us from the necessity of placing a first cause...

At the same time, actuated by similar sentiments we experience a painful emotion, when we are informed, that there exist men, enemies to all these ideas; men, who had rather deb...

Some would contradict these assertions, by saying, that celebrated men have occasioned rapid changes in the church of Rome without weakening religion. The origin, the circumstan...

I will make another observation. Those who, to free us from superstition, endeavour to relax religious restrictions; and those who, to strengthen them, have recourse to intolera...

Let us render homage to Christianity, for that sacred tie which it has formed, in uniting not for a moment, but for the whole of life, the fate of two beings, one having need of...

It may be said, that the fifty thousand new stars perceived by Dr. Herschel, being the result of observation directed to the milky-way, we are not to expect to discover as great...