What astonishes me most is to see that all the world is not astonished at its own weakness. Men act seriously, and each follows his own mode of life, not because it is in fact good to follow since it is the custom, but as if each man knew certainly where reason and justice are. They find themselves continually deceived, and, by a comical humility, think it is their own fault and not that of the art which they claim always to possess. But it is well there are so many such people in the world, who are not sceptics for the glory of scepticism, in order to show that man is quite capable of the most extravagant opinions, since he is capable of believing that he is not in a state of natural and inevitable weakness, but, on the contrary, of natural wisdom. The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men.
Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them. Submission is the use of reason in which consists true Christianity. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason.