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We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
Abbé
Art Critic
Art Theorist
Correspondent
Encyclopédistes
Essayist
Historian
Lexicographer
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lumières
Diderot
Honesty
Greedily
Trust
Flatters
Lying
Sipping
Inspirational
Swallowing
Truth
Swallow
Lied
Littles
Bitterness
Find
Bitter
Little

More quotes by Denis Diderot

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If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare.
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There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
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The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
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There is only one virtue, justice only one duty, to be happy only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.
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Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
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To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.
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Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
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Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.
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A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.
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No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
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When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
Denis Diderot
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In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.
Denis Diderot
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Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
Denis Diderot
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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
Denis Diderot
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Anyone who takes it upon himself, on his private authority, to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.
Denis Diderot
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If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
Denis Diderot
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There's a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
Denis Diderot
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A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot
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There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.
Denis Diderot