Baron d'Holbach Quotes
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, was a German-born French philosopher who became one of the most outspoken atheist and materialist voices of the high Enlightenment. His salon in Paris gathered Diderot, Rousseau, Hume, Adam Smith, and a wide circle of philosophes, while his anonymous works, including The System of Nature and Good Sense, defended a thoroughgoing naturalism in which human beings are wholly part of nature and religious belief is a product of ignorance and fear. The quotes below are attributed to Baron d'Holbach, organized by topic.
Baron d'Holbach on God
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system.”
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“If we go back to the beginning, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods.”
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“All errors are religious errors; all crimes are crimes of religion or against it.”
Baron d'Holbach on Nature
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“Nature is the cause of all things, and all things are governed by necessity.”
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Attributed to Baron d'Holbach:
“Man is born neither good nor wicked; education makes him so.”