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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
Abbé
Art Critic
Art Theorist
Correspondent
Encyclopédistes
Essayist
Historian
Lexicographer
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lumières
Diderot
Quality
Literature
Presupposes
Gaiety
Happiness
Disorder
Always
Machine
Men
Machines
Ordinary
Genius

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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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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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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 general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
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Time, matter, space - all, it may be, are no more than a point.
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Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
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There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
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Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
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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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I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
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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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Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence they have relegated him to a sanctuary the walls of the temple restrict his view he does not exist outside of it.
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The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
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The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.
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Only the bad man is alone.
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The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
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You have to make it happen.
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What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
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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.
Denis Diderot