To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred.

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.

"Can any good come out of Nazareth?" This is always the question of the wiseacres and the knowing ones. But the good, the new, comes from exactly that quarter whence it is not looked for, and is always different from what was expected. Everything new is received with contempt-for it begins in obscurity. It becomes a power unobserved.

Only he is a truly ethical, a truly human being, who has the courage to see through his own religious feelings and needs.

[T]ruth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred

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

Is it man that possesses love, or is it not much rather love that possesses man?