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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.

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
Toward
Stationary
Approach
Approaches
Eyes
Infant
Literature
Runs
Eye
Closed
Running
Adult
Back
Turned
Men
Adults

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We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
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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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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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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.
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Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
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Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly.
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Good music is very close to primitive language.
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I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
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You can be sure that a painter reveals himself in his work as much as and more than a writer does in his.
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La poe sie veutquelque chose d'e norme, debarbare et de sauvage. Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
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It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,--who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,--who can work upon others at his pleasure.
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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
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The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.
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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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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre
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