Ludwig Feuerbach Quotes

A collection of quotes by Ludwig Feuerbach.

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) was a German philosopher and anthropologist best known for his radical critique of religion and his formulation of materialistic humanism. He argued that religious beliefs and concepts were projections of human desires and needs, and thus, ultimately reflected the human nature rather than the divine. Feuerbach's works, especially "The Essence of Christianity" (1841), deeply influenced later thinkers such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He played a significant role in shaping modern atheist and secular humanist thought.

Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams

Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity.

Ludwig Feuerbach

If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, le

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.

Ludwig Feuerbach

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.

Ludwig Feuerbach

The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the

The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.

Ludwig Feuerbach