Joseph Joubert Quotes

Often what passes for faith in this world is little more than gullibility.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

Religion is like magic. It is all about tricks.

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

There's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them.

A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies.

When an apparent miracle happened.it proved divine mission to the credulous, and proved a contract with the devil to the skeptical.

Men who cannot believe in the mystery of our Saviour's redemption can believe that spirits from the dead have visited them in a stranger's parlour, because they see a table shake and do not know how it is shaken; because they hear a rapping on a board, and cannot see the instrument that raps it; because they are touched in the dark, and do not know the hand that touches them.

It requires only two things to win credit for a miracle: a mountebank and a number of silly women.

A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.

People in great institutions are occasionally credulous.

The most positive men are the most credulous.

Love is a credulous thing.

Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.

But the whole idea of the transformation... mystery, transformation, and manipulations - those were the things that Marcel was a magician at. That's his magic.

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

It is faith that moves mountains, because it gives the illusion that mountains move …. Illusion is perhaps the only reality in life.

You don't question magic.

In India, people still want an image to connect to and, even if it's a false one, they will stick to it. We are ready and want to be fooled by someone or the other, be it a baba or a politician.

The Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything.

And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles

Magicians can do more by means of faith than physicians by the truth.

Faith is fudamentally a kind of folly.