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Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

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
Lasts
Prevails
Force
Commands
Power
Acquired
Long
Obey
Denial
Command
Violence
Literature
Usurpation

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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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Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?
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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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The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me.
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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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There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
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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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I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
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A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
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Time, matter, space - all, it may be, are no more than a point.
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Le public ne sait pas toujours de sirer le vrai. Thepublicdoesnot alwaysknowhow todesirethetruth.
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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.
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There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
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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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Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.
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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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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
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Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.
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From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
Denis Diderot