Quote#Self
Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter…
Quote byBaron d'Holbach · 1723–1789
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: La Système de la nature; quoted by Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment p. 220 (paperback edition).
English (original)
Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely minute part of a globe which itself is only an imperceptible point in the immense whole, believes that the universe is made for himself.
— Baron d'Holbach
More from Baron d'Holbach
Savage and furious nations, perpetually at war, adore, under diverse names, some God, conformable to their ideas, that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, blood-thirsty.
All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.
If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.
When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions.
It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.
Pascal proves nothing in favour of Religion, unless that a man of genius may be foolish on some subjects, and is but a child, when he is weak enough to listen to his prejudices.