Pierre Bayle Quotes

It is only common prejudice that induces us to believe that atheism is a fearful state. ~ Pierre Bayle

I agree with Pierre Bayle and with Unamuno that when cold reason contemplates the world it finds not only an absence of God, but good reasons for supposing that there is no God at all. From this perspective, from what Unamuno called the 'tragic sense of life', from this despair, faith comes to the rescue, not only as something nonrational but in a sense irrational. For Unamuno the great symbol of a person of faith was his Spanish hero Don Quixote. Faith is indeed quixotic. It is absurd. Let us admit it. Let us concede to everything! To a rational mind the world looks like a world without God. It looks like a world with no hope for another life. To think otherwise, to believe in spite of appearances, is surely a kind of madness. The atheist sees clearly that windmills are in fact only windmills, that Dulcinea is just a poor country bumpkin with a homely face and an unpleasant smell. The atheist is a Sarah, justifiably laughing in her old age at Abraham's belief that God will give them a son.

What can be said in reply? How can a fideist admit that faith is a kind of madness, a dream fed by passionate desire, and yet maintain that one is not mad to make the leap? ~ Martin Gardner

The form of life Jesus offers his followers is not one of social integration but a scandal to the priestly and political establishment. It is a question of being homeless, propertyless, peripatetic, celibate, socially marginal, disdainful of kinsfolk, averse to material possessions, a friend of outcasts and pariahs, a thorn in the side of the Establishment and a scourge of the rich and powerful. Indeed, Pierre Bayle points to this fact as an argument against the political necessity of religious faith. Christianity, he remarks, is no basis for civil order, since Jesus proclaims that he has come to pitch society into turmoil.47 ~ Terry Eagleton

There was no other God, religion, or lawful magistracy, than conscience, which teaches all men the precepts of Justice, to do no injury, to live honestly, and give everyone his due. ~ Pierre Bayle

In matters of religion, it is very easy to deceive a man and very hard to undeceive him. ~ Pierre Bayle

The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God's own stamp. ~ Pierre Bayle

The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion. ~ Pierre Bayle

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. ~ Pierre Bayle

Compulsion in the literal Sense is maliciously misrepresented, by supposing it authorizes Violences committed against the Truth. The Answer to this; by which it is prov'd, that the literal Sense does in reality authorize the stirring up Persecutions against the Cause of Truth, and that an erroneous Conscience has the same Rights as an enlighten'd Conscience. ~ Pierre Bayle

I mention this only to shew that the citations of the most judicious authors frequently deceive us, and consequently that prudence obliges us to examine quotations, by whomsoever alleged. ~ Pierre Bayle

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist. ~ Pierre Bayle

I lay down the Position, That whatever a Conscience well directed allows us to do for the Advancement of Truth, an erroneous Conscience will warrant for advancing a suppos'd Truth. ~ Pierre Bayle

It has been asserted, that a moral Atheist would be a monster beyond the power of nature to create: I reply, that it is not more strange for an Atheist to live virtuously, than for a Christian to abandon himself to crime! If we believe the last kind of monster, why dispute the existence of the first? ~ Pierre Bayle

Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race. ~ Pierre Bayle

If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses, and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history. ~ Pierre Bayle

No nations are more warlike than those which profess Christianity. ~ Pierre Bayle

Philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of a wound, they then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place. ~ Pierre Bayle

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false. ~ Pierre Bayle

One must be stark mad, to believe that mankind can subsist without magistrates. ~ Pierre Bayle

There is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought. ~ Pierre Bayle

Do you doubt that the least effects of nature were not used as marks of the wrath of heaven? It was to the interest of pontiffs, priests, and augurs, as much as it is to the interest of lawyers and doctors that there should be lawsuits and sickness. No wonder they took care that the people should not grow slack in their religion. ~ Pierre Bayle

I get up and retire when I wish. I go out if I wish and I do not go out if I do not desire to do so, except for the two days on which I give lectures. ~ Pierre Bayle

So that, were it the purpose of God to produce comets as signs of his wrath it would be true to say that he is quickening a false devotion almost all over the world, increasing the number of pilgrims to Mecca, multiplying the offerings to the most famous impostors, inducing men to build mosques for Mohammedan worship, causing the invention of new superstitions among the dervishes - in a word, stimulating many abominable things which otherwise might not have been. ~ Pierre Bayle

There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent. ~ Pierre Bayle

They have neither thought nor being, and merely repeat indifferently and uncomprehendingly everything they hear, retaining within themselves an absolute void. ~ Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

There's always some further action to take. ~ Pierre Boulle

The reality of spirit-matter is inevitably translated into and confirmed by a structure of the spirit. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The essential property of insoluble bilayers is that they optimise their area at fixed surfactant number. ~ Pierre-Gilles De Gennes

As our self-interests differ, so do our feelings. ~ Pierre Corneille

Those who largely rely on their hands and the beautiful or shocking traces of the imagination that they leave on the canvas ... CONCRETE ... one builds a picture. ~ Pierre Alechinsky

I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe
that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion. ~ Pierre-Simon Laplace

Humanity is still advancing; and it will probably continue to advance for hundreds of thousands of years more, always on condition that we know how to keep the same line of advance as our ancestors towards ever greater consciousness and complexity. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

I need only to be shown my mistakes and I never rest until I have retrieved them. ~ Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

It comes a time in your life that you will no longer live for yourself anymore. You never know how much a person can mean to you until one comes into your life, and changes it for the best. ~ Jason Pierre-Paul

It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad's garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who's just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There's no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there's a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It's a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we're wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It's acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it's a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever. ~ Karl Wiggins

Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as to innocence, candor, generosity, modesty, or heroism. St. Pierre To cultivate the sense of the beautiful, is one of the most effectual ways of cultivating an appreciation of the divine goodness. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

The title of the work, its place in the collective library, the nature of the person who tells us about it, the atmosphere established in the written or spoken exhange, among many other instances, offer alternatives to the book itself that allow us to talk about ourselves without dwelling upon the work too closely. ~ Pierre Bayard

At the age when other children, I imagine, experience their first 'feeling' for a person, or for art, or for religion, I was affectionate, good, and even pious: by that I mean that under the influence of my mother, I was devoted to the Child Jesus. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

How characteristic of your perverse heart that longs only for what happens to be out of reach. ~ Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Harvard was an extraordinary window on the world. ~ Pierre Trudeau

I am not enough of a mathematician to be able to judge either the well-foundedness or the limits of relativity in physics. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

People can't stand to be alone with themselves, so they bother me when I'm trying to be alone with myself. ~ James Jean-Pierre

It is an imprudence common to kings to listen to too much advice and to err in their choice. ~ Pierre Corneille

To see more is to become more. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Prince Andrei recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz, accompanied by a Cossack. They passed close by, continuing to converse, and Pierre and Andrei involuntarily heard the following phrases: "Der Krieg muss im Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug Preis geben,"* said one. "O ja," said the other voice. ~ Leo Tolstoy

One often calms one's grief by recounting it. ~ Pierre Corneille

They say: misfortunes and sufferings,' remarked Pierre, 'yes, but if right now, right this minute they asked me: "Would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner, or go through this all again?" For God's sake let me again have captivity and horse flesh! We imagine that when we are thrown out of our familiar rut all is lost, but that is only when something new and good can begin. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,' he added, turning to Natasha. ~ Leo Tolstoy

My dad was a physician. As a kid, I remember driving around with him on weekends so he could do his rounds at the hospital and talk to patients. We'd spend time in the car talking about what was going on with them, their stories. ~ Pierre Omidyar

I want people to be entrepreneurs, but I want them to do it for the right reasons, because they think they can change the world, because they think they have got something of value to give to the world. Not because they think they can make a lot of money. ~ Pierre Omidyar

who was it that had really sentenced him to death? Not the men on the commission that had first examined him - not one of them had wished to or, evidently, could have done it. It was not Davout, who had looked at him in so human a way. In another moment Davout would have realized that he was doing wrong, but just then the adjutant had come in and interrupted him. The adjutant, also, had evidently had no evil intent though he might have refrained from coming in. Then who was executing him, killing him, depriving him of life - him, Pierre, with all his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts? Who was doing this? And Pierre felt that it was no one. It was a system - a concurrence of circumstances. A system of some sort was killing him - Pierre - depriving him of life, of everything, annihilating him. ~ Leo Tolstoy

People who try to create a musical revolution do not have a chance, but those who turn their back to music can sometimes find it. ~ Pierre Schaeffer

Neither the Christian attitude of love for all mankind nor humane hopes for an organized society must cause us to forget that the 'human stratum' may not be homogeneous. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The jean! The jean is the destructor. It is a dictator! It is destroying creativity! The jean must be stopped! ~ Pierre Cardin

(My proudest moment as a child was the time I beat my uncle Pierre at Scrabble with the seven-letter word FARTING.) ~ Tina Fey