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Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
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Art Critic
Art Theorist
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Encyclopédistes
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lumières
Diderot
Quality
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Presupposes
Happiness
Gaiety
Always
Disorder
Men
Machine
Machines
Ordinary
Genius

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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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He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
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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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Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.
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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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Only the bad man is alone.
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Tous les jours on couche avec des femmes qu'on n'aime pas, et l'on ne couche pas avec des femmes qu'on aime. Every day we sleep with women we do not love and don't sleep with the women we do love.
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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.
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Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
Denis Diderot
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In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
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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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Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
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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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Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot