Quotes from Ludwig Feuerbach

It is not I, but religion that worships man, although religion, or rather theology, denies this; it is not I, an insignificant individual, but religion itself that says: God is man, man is God

T]he creation out of nothing is no object of philosophy; … for it cuts away the root of all speculation, presents no grappling point to thought, … a baseless air-built doctrine, originated solely … to give warrant to … egoism, which … expresses nothing but the command to make Nature – not an object of thought, of contemplation, but – an object of utilisation.

Only that which is apart from my own being is capable of being doubted by me. How then can I doubt of God, who is my being? To doubt of God is to doubt of myself.

W]hile you believe in and construct your supra- and extra-natural God, you believe in and construct nothing else than the supra- and extra-naturalism of your own self.

T]he Christians abolished the distinction between soul and person, species and individual, and therefore placed immediately in self what belongs only to the totality of the species.

Faith in the future life is … faith in the truth of the imagination, as faith in God is faith in the truth and infinity of human feeling. … [F]aith in God is only faith in the abstract nature of man, so faith in the heavenly life is only faith in the abstract earthly life.

If all men were absolutely alike, … a single man would have achieved the end of the species.

Truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is, in fact, held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be seen as the highest degree of sacredness.

O]nly where man communicates with man, only in speech, a social act, awakes reason. … It is not until man has reached an advanced stage of culture that he can double himself, so as to play the part of another within himself.

N]ature listens not to the plaints of man, it is callous to his sorrows. Hence man turns away from Nature, … He turns within, that here … he may find audience for his griefs. Here he utters his oppressive secrets; … he gives vent to stifled sighs.

According to Philo, God gave Moses power over the whole of Nature; all the elements obeyed him as the Lord of Nature. … Jehovah is Israel's consciousness of the sacredness and necessity of his own existence, - a necessity before which the existence of Nature, the existence of other nations, vanishes into nothing.

M]an places the aim of his action in God, but God has no other aim of action than the moral and eternal salvation of man: thus man has in fact no other aim than himself.

God is the reason expressing, affirming itself as the highest existence. To the imagination, the reason is the revelation of God; but to the reason, God is the revelation of the reason[.]

Love recognises virtue even in sin, truth in error. … [L]ove is free, universal, in its nature[.]

God as God, … as a being not finite, not human, not materially conditioned, not phenomenal, is only an object of thought. … [H]e is known … only by abstraction and negation … There is no other spirit, no other intelligence which enlightens him, which is active in him. … The 'infinite spirit,' is therefore nothing else than the intelligence disengaged from the limits of individuality and corporeality[.]

T]ime is indifferent: its existence or non-existence depends only on the will. But this will is not its own will:- not only because a thing cannot will its non-existence, but for the prior reason that the world itself is destitute of will. Thus the nothingness of the world expresses the power of the will. … The existence of the world is therefore a momentary, arbitrary, i.e., unreal existence.

T]he effect of the creation, all its majesty for the feelings and the imagination, is quite lost if the production of the world … is not taken in its real sense.

Y sin duda nuestro tiempo... prefiere la imagen a la cosa, la copia al original, la representación a la realidad, la apariencia al ser... lo que es 'sagrado' para él no es sino la ilusión, pero lo que es profano es la verdad. Mejor aún: lo sagrado aumenta a sus ojos a medida que disminuye la verdad y crece la ilusión, hasta el punto de que el colmo de la ilusión es también para él el colmo de lo sagrado

I cannot so abstract myself from myself as to judge myself … ; another has an impartial judgement; through him I correct, complete, extend my own judgement, my own taste, my own knowledge.

But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence [...] truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to 'be the highest degree of sacredness.

The Christians made mental phenomena into independent beings, their own feelings into qualities of things, the passions which governed them into powers which governed the world, in short, predicates of their own nature, whether recognised as such or not, into independent, subjective existences.

Obedece aos sentidos! Onde começam os sentidos cessam a religião e a filosofia, mas em compensação a verdade simples e nua te é dada.

There may certainly be thinking beings besides men on the other planets of our solar system. But by the suppositions of such beings we do not change our standing point – we extend our conception quantitively not qualitatively.

Man has given objectivity to himself, but has not recognised the object as his own nature. … [T]he essence of religion … is evident to the thinker … . [T]he antithesis of divine and human is altogether illusory; … it is nothing else than the antithesis between the human nature in general and the human individual.