It is pure illusion to allege that an opinion which passes from age to age and from generation to generation cannot be entirely false. Tradition hands down errors as faithfully as truths; examine, and you will find that most of what men believe, they believe upon trust.
History, properly speaking, is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.
Human reason is a principle of destruction and not of edification: she is fit only for raising doubts, and for turning herself this way and that to perpetuate a dispute. Happy the man who can make her cross her own light — for there is no other way to silence her.
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