Pensee # 198/693: "When I see the blind and wretched state of man, when I survey the whole universe in its silence and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island and should awake without knowing where he is and without means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair. I see other persons around me made like myself. I ask them if they are any better informed than I am and they say they are not. Then these lost and wretched creatures look around and find some attractive objects to which they have become addicted and attached. For my part, I have never been able to form such attachments and, considering how very likely it is that there exists something besides what I can see, I have tried to find out whether God has left any traces of himself. I see a number of religions in conflict, and therefore all false except one. Each of them wishes to be believed on their own authority and makes threats to non-believers. I do not believe them on that account. Anyone can say that...this is where unaided knowledge brings us..."
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