Christianity has in fact long vanished, not only from the reason but also from the life of mankind, and it is nothing more than a fixed idea.

The joys of theory are the sweetest intellectual pleasures of life

Theology is Anthropology... [T]he distinction which is made, or rather supposed to be made, between the theological and anthropological predicates resolves itself into an absurdity.

"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.

Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates God in his own image, and after this God consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image.

Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity.

Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God’s help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires.