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[.]

— Ludwig Feuerbach

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

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[I]f God as a subject is the determined, while the quality, the predicate, is determining, then in truth the rank of the godhead is due not to the subject, but to the predicate.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

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]n love, man declares himself unsatisfied in his individuality taken by itself, he postulates the existence of another as a need of the heart; … the life which he has through love to be the truly human life, … The individual is defective, imperfect, weak, needy; but love is strong, perfect, contented, free from wants, self-sufficing, infinite; … friendship is a means of virtue, and more: it is … dependent however on participation. … [I’t cannot be based on perfect similarity; on the contrary, it requires diversity, for friendship rests on a desire for self-contemplation. One friend obtains through the other what he does not himself possess. … However faulty a man may be, it is a proof that there is a germ of good in him if he has worthy men for his friends. If I cannot be myself perfect, I yet at least love virtue, perfection in others.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

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.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, then an angel in alliance with falsehood.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[L]ET it is remembered that atheism … is the secret of religion … religion … in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

The essence of faith … is the idea that which man wishes actually is: he wishes to be immortal, therefore he is immortal; he wishes for the existence of a being who can do everything which is impossible to Nature and reason, therefore such a being exists[.]

— Ludwig Feuerbach

The Jewish people trusted themselves 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.

— Ludwig Feuerbach