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It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.

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
Religious
Important
Believe
Parsley
Hemlock
God
Mistake
Literature

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In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
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Those authors into whose hands nature has placed a magic wand, with which they no sooner touch us than we forget the unhappiness in life, than the darkness leaves our soul, and we are reconciled to existence, should be placed among the benefactors of the human race.
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Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
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One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it
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How easy it is to tell tales!
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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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Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
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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.
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My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.
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The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
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Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
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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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Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
Denis Diderot
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First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart make me tremble, weep, shudder outrage me delight my eyes afterwards if you can.
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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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To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.
Denis Diderot
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They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish.
Denis Diderot
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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
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If there were a reason for preferring the Christian religion to natural religion, it would be because the former offers us, on the nature of God and man, enlightenment that the latter lacks. Now, this is not at all the case for Christianity, instead of clarifying, gives rise to an infinite multitude of obscurities and difficulties.
Denis Diderot