Religion is too important a matter to its devotees to be a subject of ridicule. If they indulge in absurdities, they are to be pitied rather than ridiculed.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Lecture, Königsberg (1775)

Quoted in H. L. Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources (1946).