Baron d'Holbach Professions : Author Born : December 8, 1723 Died : January 21, 1789 Browse All Authors Top 38 quotes by Baron d'Holbach If experience be consulted, it will be found there is no action, however abominable, that has not received the applause of some people. Parricide - the sacrifice of children - robbery - usurpation - cruelty - intolerance - prostitution, have all in their turn been licensed actions, and have been deemed laudable and meritorious deeds with some nations of the earth. Above all, Religion has consecrated the most unreasonable, the most revolting customs. Baron d'Holbach sacrifice children people It is very strange that men should deny a Creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels. Baron d'Holbach eels creating men The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. Baron d'Holbach nature ignorance animal The atheist . . . destroys the chimeras which afflict the human race, and so leads men back to nature, to experience and to reason. Baron d'Holbach atheist race men Don't say anything about this to anybody. Any one would say that I am trying to play the good-natured philosopher. I am neither benefactor nor philosopher, but just a human being, and my charities are the pleasantest expense I have on these journeys. Baron d'Holbach journey say-anything play Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature - after the recipe for making eels from flour - is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried the impossibility. If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it. Baron d'Holbach eels doubt order 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. Baron d'Holbach wise mind men It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism. Baron d'Holbach vanity superstitions men 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. Baron d'Holbach common-sense atheist men 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. Baron d'Holbach vanity atheist men 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? Baron d'Holbach giving men ideas In Nature nothing; is mean or contemptible, and it is only pride, originating in a false idea of our superiority, which causes our contempt for some of her productions. In the eyes of Nature, however, the oyster that vegetates at the bottom of the sea is as dear and perfect as the proud biped who devours it. Baron d'Holbach eye pride mean 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. Baron d'Holbach ignorance real men If the ministers of the Church have often permitted nations to revolt for Heaven's cause, they never allowed them to revolt against real evils or known violencess. It is from Heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of mortals. Baron d'Holbach real evil heaven Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense. Baron d'Holbach nothing common-sense reason religion Religion unites man with God, or forms a communication between them; yet do they not say, 'God is infinite?' If God be infinite, no finite being can have communication or relation with him. Baron d'Holbach man communication god religion To discover the true principles of Morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods: They have need only of common sense. Baron d'Holbach true need morality men If God be an infinite being, there cannot be, either in the present or future world, any relative proportion between man and his God. Thus, the idea of God can never enter the human mind. Baron d'Holbach man future god mind Similar Authors F. E. Marsh author Iimani David author Beatrice Faust author Isabella Macdonald Alden author Isabella Beeton author Alan AtKisson author All Authors