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.

Weishaupt's father Johann Georg Weishaupt (1717–1753) died when Adam was five years old. After Weishaupt's Order of the Illuminati was banned and its members dispersed it left behind no enduring traces of an influence not even on its own erstwhile members who went on in the future to develop in quite different directions.

Johann Adam Weishaupt (6 February 1748 – 18 November 1830) was a German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati a secret society with origins in Bavaria.