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. A lecture at Königsberg (1775)
Inclinations of illusion make weak men superstitious and superstitious men weak. ... The illusion that leads them to mistake the subjective for the objective, to take the voice of inner sense for knowledge of things themselves, also makes the tendency to superstition comprehensible. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)