A man who parades his piety is one who, under an atheist king, would be an atheist.
[Un dévot est celui qui, sous un roi athée, serait athée.]
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 13 “Of the Fashion [De la Mode],” § 21 (13.21) (1688)
(Source)
La Bruyère notes in the original this refers to a "faux dévot."
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
An Hypocrite is one that will be an Atheist under a King that is so.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]
A Devote is one, that under a King who was an Atheist, would be a Devote.
[Curll ed. (1713)]
A Devoto is one, that under an atheistical King wouild be an Atheist.
[Browne ed. (1752)]
A pious person is one who, under an atheistical king, would be an atheist.
[tr. Van Laun (1885)]
A pious hypocrite is one who, under an atheistic king, would be an atheist.
[tr. Stewart (1970)]
Quotations about:
devout
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I am often inclined to be envious of other people’s religion. They are so cocksure dogmatically that they act as though they are omniscient. Life has no doubts, its direction is determined, all evil is by hypothesis overruled by an all-wise God for good. I do not share this view of life, any more than I share the Christian Science views of disease, but I can see that it makes people enthusiastic, effective, self-forgetful and often fanatical and great bores.
Henry Joel Cadbury (1883-1974) American biblical scholar, Quaker historian, writer, activist
“My Personal Religion,” lecture, Harvard School of Divinity (1936)
(Source)
