“Men always fool themselves when they give up experience for systems born of the imagination. Man is the work of nature, he exists in nature, he is subject to its laws, he can not break free, he can not leave even in thought; it is in vain that his spirit wants to soar beyond the bounds of the visible world, he is always forced to return.” MenWorldWantGivingLawScienceSpiritNatureBornImaginationNaturalBreakSubjectsFoolReturnGiving UpBoundsVainVisibleCan NotSoar Author:Baron d'Holbach
“It is very strange that men should deny a Creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels.” MenShouldStrangeCreatingCreatorDenyAttributesEels Author:Baron d'Holbach
“Many men without morals have attacked religion because it was contrary to their inclinations. Many wise men have despised it because it seemed to them ridiculous. Many persons have regarded it with indifference, because they have never felt its true disadvantages. But it is as a citizen that I attack it, because it seems to me harmful to the happiness of the state, hostile to the march of the mind of man, and contrary to sound morality, from which the interests of state policy can never be separated.” MenMindPersonsStatesSeemsFeltSoundInterestMoralWiseAtheismPolicyCitizensMoralityPositive AtheismContraryRidiculousIndifferenceMarchHostileInclinationDisadvantagesDespised Author:Baron d'Holbach
“All religious notions are uniformly founded on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination, and are not disposed that men should reason upon them.” MenWorldShouldReasonReligiousAuthorityNotionExamination Author:Baron d'Holbach
“The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature.” MenNatureAnimalIgnoranceSourceUnhappiness Author:Baron d'Holbach
“If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men.” IfsMenReligionOrderImaginationIgnoranceWorshipWeaknessAtheistProfitFavorsTyrannyDeceptionCustomsSparesBlindnessRaptureIgnorance And Fear Author:Baron d'Holbach
“Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely minute part of a globe which itself is only an imperceptible point in the immense whole, believes that the universe is made for himself.” MenBelieveMadeWholeReligionUniverseSunSkyMinutesPlanetsRevolutionWasteImmenseGlobesOrbit Author:Baron d'Holbach
“What, indeed, is an atheist? He is one who destroys delusions which are harmful to humanity in order to lead men back to nature, to reality, to reason. He is a thinker who, having reflected on the nature of matter, its energy, properties and ways of acting, has no need of idealized powers or imaginary intelligences to explain the phenomena of the universe and the operations of nature.” MenWayNeedsMatterReasonRealityHumanityOrderUniverseEnergyActingAtheismPropertyAtheistOperationsDelusionThinkerImaginary Author:Baron d'Holbach
“Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness, and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. It is by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion, that we shall discover truth, morality and reason. Religion diverts us from the causes of evils, and from these remedies which nature advocates, far from curing; it only aggravates, perpetuates and multiplies them.” MenMindRealReasonEvilCausesInterestDarknessIgnoranceDutyMoralityFilledCloudsRemedyPhantomsAgnosticismDispelling Author:Baron d'Holbach
“It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.” MenVanitySuperstitionsFanaticismInfancy Author:Baron d'Holbach
“These principles, universally recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is considered; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man.” MenHas BeensSaidReasonReligionCommonImpossibleAtheismAtheistEvery ManCommon SenseContradictory Author:Baron d'Holbach
“The atheist . . . destroys the chimeras which afflict the human race, and so leads men back to nature, to experience and to reason.” MenHumansReasonReligionRaceAtheistHuman RaceChimera Author:Baron d'Holbach
“How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears? Man has been forced to vegetate in his primitive stupidity: he has been taught stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness was supposed to depend. Occupied solely by his fears, and by unintelligible reveries, he has always been at the mercy of priests, who have reserved to themselves the right of thinking for him, and of directing his actions.” ThinkingMenMindHumansHas BeensStoriesActionProgressIgnoranceTaughtDependsMercyStupidityInvisiblePriestsHuman MindPrimitiveReservedPhantomsReveriePerpetuatingIgnorance And Fear Author:Baron d'Holbach
“Can theology give to the mind the ineffable boon of conceiving that which no man is in a capacity to comprehend? Can it procure to its agents the marvellous faculty of having precise ideas of a god composed of so many contradictory qualities?” MenGivingMindIdeasQualityAtheismCapacityPositive AtheismTheologyAgentsFacultyPreciseContradictoryMarvellousIneffableBoonConceiving Author:Baron d'Holbach
“When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions.” MenCommonOpinionJudgmentCommon SenseContradictionRejectsAbsurdityUncommon Author:Baron d'Holbach
“It is thus religion infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity and fanaticism: if he has a heated imagination it drives him on to fury; if he has activity, it makes him a madman, who is frequently as cruel to himself, as he is dangerous and incommodious to others: if, on the contrary, he be phlegmatic or of a slothful habit, he becomes melancholy and is useless to society.” IfsMenImaginationDangerousHabitActivityAtheistContraryVanityUselessMelancholyFuryFanaticismMadmenInfancy Author:Baron d'Holbach
