"Has the reason shared the condition of the other faculties, which our fall has so grievously injured? Is the reason corrupted? Mediately, yes; immediately, no: at least that is my belief. Our reason is the reporter of our sensations: if our sensations make a false deposition, our reason will make a false judgment. And this is what happens through the obscuration of our moral sense and the tumult of our passions; the judge is uncorrupted, but he is misinformed. p. 35"
Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet was a Swiss literary critic and theologian.
"We feel the necessity of deceiving ourselves, of even grossly deceiving ourselves, and of believing, when we are doing wrong, that we are doing right. When we do not succeed in reaching such persuasion, merely by sounding our own reason and conscience, we look about for something or some person to aid us in the attempt."
"The point of departure, the datum of the whole chapter, is this. "Man is made to know the truth: he desires it ardently, he searches for it; yet when he tries to seize it, he is so dazzled and confounded, that he gives occasion to dispute his possession of it. It is this that has given birth to the two sects of Pyrrhonists and Dogmatists, the former of whom have wished to take away from man all knowledge of the truth, the latter strive to assure him of it; but each with reasons so little truth-like, that they increase the confusion and embarrassment of man, as long as he has no other light than that which he finds in his own nature." p. 131"
"Man feels in himself passions which ought to obey, and a reason which ought to command. But it is in vain: the war is endless; victory on either side is impossible. Neither can reason subdue the passions, nor can the passions put reason to silence. p. 17"
"Between God and man, between the gospel and each soul, the interpreter is Love."
"The most doubtful reasoning appears to us clear and conclusive, when we can, in any way, twist it to an accordance with what we desire."
"A conscience that is only sluggish, may submit to truth when it happens to meet with it: but a conscience under the seductions of passion, will not submit to it without great difficulty, and will devise some pretext, some expedient, for resisting the voice of truth that openly rebukes it."