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The sole and unique protector
“He is indeed our sole and unique protector, and can do anything to help us; but although he deigns to honor us with that sweet fatherly relationship, nevertheless, he is as just as he is good and as he is powerful. But he exercises his justice much more often than his power, and favors us…
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Nothing is so firmly believed
“Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known, nor are any people so confident as those who tell us fables, such as alchemists, prognosticators, astrologers, palmists, doctors…” I.32 “We should meddle soberly with judging divine ordinances” (p. 194) [Add to the list nowadays.]
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Condemning things of slight probability
“How many things of slight probability there are, testified to by trustworthy people, which, if we cannot be convinced of them, we should at least leave in suspense! For to condemn them as impossible is to pretend, with rash presumption, to know the limits of possibility.” I.27 “It is folly to measure the true and…
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Disdaining what we do not comprehend
“It is a dangerous and fateful presumption, besides the absurd temerity that it implies, to disdain what we do not comprehend. For after you have established, according to your fine understanding, the limits of truth and falsehood, and it turns out that you must necessarily believe things even stranger than those you deny, you are…
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Facility in belief = simplicity and ignorance
“Perhaps it is not without reason that we attribute facility in belief and conviction to simplicity and ignorance. … The more a mind is empty and without counterpoise, the more easily it gives beneath the weight of the first persuasive argument. … But then, on the other hand, it is foolish presumption to go around…