System of Nature Quotes

“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.”
― Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach, System of Nature

“All children are atheists, they have no idea of God.”
― Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach, System of Nature

“If a faithful account was rendered of man's ideas upon the Divinity, he would be obliged to acknowledge, that for the most part the word Gods has been used to express the concealed, remote, unknown causes of the effects he witnessed; that he applies this term when the spring of natural, the source of known causes ceases to be visible: as soon as he loses the thread of these causes, or as soon as his mind can no longer follow the chain, he solves the difficulty, terminates his research, by ascribing it to his gods; thus giving a vague definition to an unknown cause, at which either his idleness, or his limited knowledge, obliges him to stop. When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production of some phenomenon, the novelty or the extent of which strikes him with wonder, but of which his ignorance precludes him from unravelling the true cause, or which he believes the natural powers with which he is acquainted are inadequate to bring forth; does he, in fact, do any thing more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe?”
― Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach, System of Nature

“Laws are made with a view to maintain society; to uphold its existence; to prevent man associated, from injuring his neighbour; they are therefore competent to punish those who disturb its harmony, or those who commit actions that are injurious to their fellows;”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature

“Doctor Clarke, says to this effect: “Conscience is the act of reflecting, by means of which I know that I think, and that my thoughts, or my actions belong to me, and not to another.”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature

“The doctrine of spirituality, such as it now exists, offers nothing but vague ideas; or rather is the absense of all ideas.”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature

“DEMOCRITUS made it consist in motion, consequently gave it a manner of existence. ARISTOXENES, who was himself a musician, made it harmony. ARISTOTLE regarded the soul as the moving faculty, upon which depended the motion of living bodies. The earliest doctors of Christianity had no other idea of the soul, than that it was material. TERTULLIAN, ARNOBIUS, CLEMENT of ALEXANDRIA, ORIGEN, SAINT JUSTIN, IRENAEUS, have all of them discoursed upon it; but have never spoken of it other than as a corporeal substance—as matter.”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature

“Thus, every thing seems to authorise the conjecture, that the human species is a production peculiar to our sphere, in the position in which it is found: that when this position may happen to change, the human species will, of consequence, either be changed or will be obliged to disappear;”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature

“It will no doubt be argued, that as Nature contains and produces intelligent beings, either she must be herself intelligent, or else she must be governed by an intelligent cause.”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature

“It therefore follows, there can be neither monsters nor prodigies; wonders nor miracles in Nature: those which are designated MONSTERS, are certain combinations, with which the eyes of man are not familiarized;”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature

“He is the work of nature.—He exists in Nature.—He is submitted to the laws of Nature.—He cannot deliver himself from them:—cannot step beyond them even in thought.”
― Paul Henri Thiry, The System of Nature