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 Andreas Feuerbach
Topics: Atheism
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 Andreas Feuerbach
The first and highest law must be the love of man to man. Homo homini Deus est – this is the supreme practical maxim, this is the turning point of the world’s History.
—Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
Topics: Kindness
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 Andreas Feuerbach
Topics: Philosophers, Philosophy
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 Andreas Feuerbach
Topics: Religion
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John Rawls American Philosopher
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Jacques Derrida French Philosopher, Literary Theorist
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Emanuel Swedenborg Swedish Mystic, Theologian, Scientist
Zeno of Citium Greek Philosopher
Jose Ortega y. Gasset Spanish Philosopher
Hans-Georg Gadamer German Philosopher
Karl Popper Austrian-born British Philosopher
Jeremy Bentham British Philosopher, Economist