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Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
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Diderot
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Skepticism
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More quotes by 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.
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In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
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If the weather is too cold or rainy, I take shelter in the Regence Cafe, where I entertain myself by watching chess being played. Paris is the world center, and this cafe is the Paris centre for the finest skill at this game.
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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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The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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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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All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings... We must run roughshod over all these ancient puerilities, overturn the barriers that reason never erected, give back to the arts and sciences the liberty that is so precious to them.
Denis Diderot
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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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When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them.
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Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
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Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
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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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Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
Denis Diderot
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Only the bad man is alone.
Denis Diderot
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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot
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What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot
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Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.
Denis Diderot
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En ge ne ral, plus un peuple est civilise , poli, moins ses moeurs sont poe tiques tout s'affaiblit en s'adoucissant. Ingeneral, themore civilized and refinedthepeople, the less poetic are its morals everything weakens as it mellows.
Denis Diderot
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We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
Denis Diderot