Quotes about Enlightenment

Jesus wept Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.

We can regard ourselves as already awake; we can regard our world as already sacred.

God gives us not only the truth but also the ability to believe it; not only the new thing to see but also the new eye to see it with.

If we seek the truth without realizing how far we are from it, we will be dogmatists. If we realize how far we are from the truth but do not seek it, we will be skeptics. If we both seek the truth and realize how far we are from it, we will be wise.

When the worldly toys in which we foolishly place our hopes for happiness are taken away from us, our foolishness is also taken away, and this brings us closer to true happiness, which is not in worldly things but in wisdom.

Among some of the famous men educated by the Jesuits we find Bossuet, Corneille, Molière, Tasso, Fontenelle, Diderot, Voltaire, and Bourdaloue, himself a Jesuit.

He who is influenced neither by the soaking in of slander nor by the assault of denunciation may indeed be called illumined.

Don't be afraid to be weird for being wise.

So pervasively has Enlightenment culture's anti-supernaturalism affected the Western church, especially educated European and North American Christians, that most of us are suspicious of anything supernatural.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We stumble and fall constantly, even when we are most enlightened.

The birth of science was the death of superstition.