There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy the world's religions. I must believe in Apostolic succession, there being no other way of accounting for the descent of the Pope from Judas Iscariot. For many, faith is a suitable substitute for knowledge, as death is for a difficult life. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as part of the latter.
Christian humility is preached by the clergy, but practiced only by the lower classes.
Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan, spoiled. The Christian lives in a nightmare and thinks it is a pleasant dream. Reason is, of all things in the world, the most hurtful to a reasoning human being. God only allows it to remain with those he intends to damn, and his goodness takes it away from those he intends to save or render useful in the Church . . . To the philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.