The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.

Under the pseudonym “Poor Richard,” Benjamin Franklin wrote this aphorism in an edition of his yearly almanac, a collection of information, advice, and sayings published from 1733 to 1760. With these words, the founding father, inventor, and political philosopher draws a distinct line between the virtues of faith and reason. He asserts that logic can often get in the way of the cultivation of faith, whether in a deity or the belief in an idea or person. Clinging too closely to what we know, Franklin warns, can obscure the vastness of what we still have yet to learn.