Ludwig Feuerbach

“Faith does not limit itself by the idea of a world, a universe, a necessity.”

“Faith in the power of prayer … is … faith in miraculous power; and faith in miracles is … the essence of faith in general. … [F]aith is nothing else than confidence in the reality of the subjective in opposition to the limitations or laws of Nature and reason, … The specific object of faith, therefore, is miracle; … To faith nothing is impossible, and miracle only gives actuality to this omnipotence of faith[.]”

“[T]hese days illusion only is scared, truth profane. … [S]acredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to highest degree of sacredness. Religion has disappeared, … for it has been substituted … the appearance of religion[.]”

“[This philosophy] … is antagonistic to minds perverted and crippled by a superhuman”

“Consciousness consists in a being becoming objective to itself; … it is nothing apart, nothing distinct from the being which is conscious of itself.”

“In reality, where everything passes on naturally, the copy follows the original, the image the thing which it represents, the thought its object, but on the supernatural, miraculous ground of theology, the original follows the copy, the thing its own likeness."it is strange" says St. Augustine, "But nevertheless true, that this world could not exist if it was not known to God." That means the world is known and thought before it exists; nay it exists only because it was thought of. The existence is a consequence of the knowledge or of the act of thinking, the original a consequence of the copy, the object a consequence of its likeness.”

“I do not regard the limits of the past and present as the limits of humanity of the future”

“Faith in Providence is faith in one's own worth, … [H]ence also false humility, religious arrogance, which, it is true, does not rely on itself, but only because it commits the care of itself to the blessed God. God … wills that I shall be blest; but that is my will also: … God's love for me [is] nothing else than my own self-love deified.”

“I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.”

“[T]he understanding or the reason is the necessary being. … [I]f there were no reason, no consciousness, all would be nothing; existence would be equivalent to non-existence. Consciousness first founds the distinction between existence and non-existence. In consciousness is first revealed the value of existence, the value of nature.”

“[T]he present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original[.]”

“The Jewish people trusted thmself to do nothing except that what was commanded by God; they were without will even in external things; the authority of religion extended itself even to their food. The Christian religion, on the other hand, in all external things made humankind dependent on itself, i.e. placed in it what Judaism placed out of it. … Thus do things change. What yesterday was still religion is no longer such to-day; and what to-day is atheism, to-morrow will be religion.”

“I by no means say … God is nothing, the Trinity is nothing, the Word of God is nothing, … . I only show that they are not that which the illusions of theology make them[.]”

“Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God’s help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires.”

“If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism — at least in the sense of this work — is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.”

“The Jewish people trusted themself to do nothing except that what was commanded by God; they were without will even in external things; the authority of religion extended itself even to their food. The Christian religion, on the other hand, in all external things made humankind dependent on itself, i.e. placed in it what Judaism placed out of itself. … Thus do things change. What yesterday was still religion is no longer such to-day; and what to-day is atheism, to-morrow will be religion.”

“To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred.”

“[This philosophy] does not … regard the pen as the only fit organ for the revelation of truth, but the eye and ear, the hand and foot”

“[T]here is no distinction between the predicates of the divine and human nature, and, consequently, no distinction between the divine and human subject … [T]he predicates are not accidents, but express the essence of the subject … [T]he essence of religion … conceives and affirms a profoundly human relation as divine relations[.]”

“Certainly my work is negative, destructive; but … only in relation to the unhuman, not to the human[.]”