The Jewish people trusted thyself 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 it. … 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

The notion that the fulfillment of prayer has been determined from eternity, that it was originally included in the plan of creation, is the empty, absurd fiction of a mechanical mode of thought, which is in absolute contradiction with the nature of religion. Whether God decides on the fulfillment of my prayer now, on the immediate occasion of my offering it, or whether he did decide on it long ago, is the same thing.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

The power of thought is the light of knowledge, the power of will is the energy of character, the power of heart is love. Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[T]he present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original[.]

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[T]here days illusion only is scared, truth profane. … [S]sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to the highest degree of sacredness. Religion has disappeared, … for it has been substituted … the appearance of religion[.]

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[T]here is no distinction between the predicates of the divine and human nature, and, consequently, no distinction between the divine and human subject … [T]he predicates are not accidents, but express the essence of the subject … [T]he essence of religion … conceives and affirms a profoundly human relation as divine relations[.]

— Ludwig Feuerbach

The task of the modern era was the realization and humanization of God – the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[T]he understanding or the reason is the necessary being. … [I]f there were no reason, no consciousness, all would be nothing; existence would be equivalent to non-existence. Consciousness first founds the distinction between existence and non-existence. In consciousness is first revealed the value of existence, the value of nature.

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[This philosophy] does not … regard the pen as the only fit organ for the revelation of truth, but the eye and ear, the hand and foot

— Ludwig Feuerbach

[This philosophy] … is antagonistic to minds perverted and crippled by a superhuman

— Ludwig Feuerbach