“All our ideas are representations of the objects that affect our senses; then what can be represented by the idea of God, which is obviously an idea without an object? Isn't such an idea, or will add, as impossible as effects without causes? Isn't an idea without a prototype anything but a chimera? Some Doctors of the Church, you will continue, assure us that the notion of God is innate, and that a man already has this notion in his mother's womb. But that is wrong, you will add; every principle is a judgement, every judgement is the result of experience, and experience can be gained only through the exercise of the senses. And it thereby follows that religious principles are obviously based on nothing and are not innate at all. How, you will go on, could anyone persuade rational beings that the hardest thing to grasp was the most essential thing for them? They were terrified; and when you are terrified, you are no longer rational. Above all, they were told to distrust their reasoning; and when the brains are muddled, you believe everything and examine nothing. Fear and ignorance, you will continue, are two mainstays of any and all religions.”

— Marquis de Sade , Philosophy in the Bedroom

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All our ideas are representations of the objects that affect our senses; then what can be represented by the idea of Go…" by Marquis de Sade?

Marquis de Sade 30

French novelist and philosopher 1740–1814

Related quotes

“Great changes are not caused by ideas alone; but they are not effected without ideas.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter III, The Movement Of Theory, p. 30.

“We're used to the idea that women aren't represented in our culture and media and politics and films. The idea that this extended to what was sold as objective - the idea of medicine and science, that they were also underrepresenting women - was just mind-blowing to me.”

Caroline Criado-Perez (1984) British journalist and author

On how women are ignored in the medical world in “Caroline Criado-Perez On Data Bias And 'Invisible Women'” https://www.npr.org/2019/03/17/704209639/caroline-criado-perez-on-data-bias-and-invisible-women in NPR (2019 Mar 17)

“The idea of an object is the idea of its effects, of what it will do, and of what will happen to it, under various conditions.”

Otis Hamilton Lee (1902–1948) American philosopher

Source: [The Review of Metaphysics, 1, 4, June 1948, 32–58, Pragmatism and Existence, https://www.pdcnet.org/revmetaph/content/revmetaph_1948_0001_0004_0032_0058]

“A truly intelligent person welcomes new ideas, for new ideas can add to the synergy of other accumulated ideas.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

“Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it is the idea of the immortality of the human soul, for all other "higher" ideas of life by which humans might live derive from that idea alone.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

A Writer's Diary, Volume 1: 1873-1876 (1994), p. 734 http://books.google.com.br/books?id=38xQHS4h0yEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=pt-BR&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false