Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery.

Who would imagine that I was to be the founder of a new religion.

A Literary Society is the most proper form for the introduction of our Order into any state where we are yet strangers.

I did not bring Deism into Bavaria more than into Rome. I found it here, in great vigour, more abounding than in any of the neighboring Protestant States. I am proud to be known to the world as the founder of the Illuminati.

The most wonderful thing of all is that the distinguished Lutheran and Calvinist theologians who belong to our order really believe that they see in it (Illuminati) the true and genuine sense of Christian Religion. Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?

We see with what keenness and zeal the frivolous business of Freemasons is conducted, by persons knit together by the secrecy of their union.

I declare and I challenge all mankind to contradict my declaration, that no man can give any account of the order of Freemasonry, of its origin, of its history, of its object, nor any explanation of its mysteries and symbols, which does not leave the mind in total uncertainty on all these points. Every man is entitled therefore, to give any explanation of the symbols and a system of the doctrine that he can render palatable.