Adam Weishaupt quotes

Adam Weishaupt was a German philosopher and professor of law, best known as the founder of the secret society known as the Illuminati. His work and the society he created influenced discussions about freedom, enlightenment, and conspiracy. He became a symbol of secret knowledge and the pursuit of rational thought in the Age of Enlightenment. Here are 31 of his quotes:

The human race will then become one family, and the world will be the dwelling of Rational Men.

Adam Weishaupt

I am proud to be known to the world as the founder of the Illuminati.

Adam Weishaupt

And of all illumination which human reason can give, none is comparable to the discovery of what we are, our nature, our obligations, what happiness we are capable of, and what are the means of attaining it.

Adam Weishaupt

When man lives under government, he is fallen, his worth is gone, and his nature tarnished.

Adam Weishaupt

This is the great object held out by this association; and the means of attaining it is illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason which will dispell the clouds of superstition and of prejudice.

Adam Weishaupt

The first task of the association must therefore be to form the young members.

Adam Weishaupt

But I would have executed much greater things, had not government always opposed my exertions, and placed others in situations which would have suited my talents.

Adam Weishaupt

Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery.

Adam Weishaupt

Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?

Adam Weishaupt

The hankering of the mind is irresistible.

Adam Weishaupt

The head of every family will be what Abraham was, the patriarch, the priest and the unlettered lord of his family, and Reason will be the code of laws to all mankind.

Adam Weishaupt

It was the full conviction of this, and of what could be done, if every man were placed in the office for which he was fitted by nature and a proper education, which first suggested to me the plan of Illumination.

Adam Weishaupt

A Literary Society is the most proper form for the introduction of our Order into any state where we are yet strangers.

Adam Weishaupt

In another situation, and in an active station in life, I should have been keenly occupied, and the founding of an order would have never come into my head.

Adam Weishaupt

But alas, they are all sadly deficient, because they leave us under the domination of political and religious prejudices; and they are as inefficient as the sleepy dose of an ordinary sermon.

Adam Weishaupt

My general plan is good, though in the detail there may be faults.

Adam Weishaupt

I myself brought Deism no more to Bavaria than to Rome or Italy. I found it there already; and I shall give the reasons below, just why in the most fanatical countries, and more under Catholicism than Protestantism, this sort of person is found in such a measure and multitude.

Adam Weishaupt

Since the number of men is large but the earthly realm is not inexhaustible, one man can no longer profit from the labour of twenty. Moderation, contentment, and frugality must become the general morals of mankind. [...] The whole earth becomes a garden, and nature has at last completed her day's work here below, bringing permanent enlightenment, peace, and felicity together with the greatest possible number of men : she has anointed every man as his own judge, priest, and king; has turned the often-ridiculed tale of the golden age, mankind's favorite idea of old, into a reality by discreetly removing the eternal inequality of wealth, which has been ineffectively combated by all lawgivers and has always has crept back in, and which is the source of the decay of all nations, and the root of servitude, tyranny, and disunity among men, of venality and moral corruption, making it forever impossible through the excessive growth of the human population.

Adam Weishaupt

In this time, when the games and abuses of secret societies were without end, I wanted to make use of this human weakness for a real and worthy goal, the welfare of mankind.... I wanted what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular powers should do and want by virtue of their offices.

Adam Weishaupt

Do you realize sufficiently what it means to rule-to rule in a secret society? Not only over the lesser or more important of the populace, but over the best of men, over men of all ranks, nations, and religions, to rule without external force, to unite them indissolubly, to breathe one spirit and soul into them, men distributed over all parts of the world?

Adam Weishaupt

This first stage of the life of the whole race is savagery, raw nature:... a condition in which man enjoys the most exquisite goods, equality and freedom, in full abundance, and would also enjoy them forever, if he would follow the hint of nature and understand the art of not abusing his powers and preventing the outbreak of his excessive passions.

Adam Weishaupt

Should you seek might, power, false honor, excess - seek that we would work for you to provide your temporal advantages - we will bring you as close to the throne as you wish, and then turn you over to the consequences of your folly, but our inner sanctuary remains closed to such. But should you want to learn wisdom - want to learn to make mankind more clever, better, free and happy - then be thrice welcomed by us.

Adam Weishaupt