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.

It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image.

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.

This work, though it deals only with eating and drinking, which are regarded in the eyes of our supernaturalistic mock-culture as the lowest acts, is of the greatest philosophic significance and importance... How former philosophers have broken their heads over the question of the bond between body and soul! Now we know, on scientific grounds, what the masses know from long experience, that eating and drinking hold together body and soul, that the searched-for bond is nutrition.

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

My only wish isto transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world, Christians who, by their own procession and admission, are half animal, half angel into persons, into whole persons.

What else is the power of melody but the power of feeling? Music is the language of feeling; melody is audible feeling - feeling communicating itself.