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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
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Morality
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Something
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Inconvenient

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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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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.
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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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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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One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it
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Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
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Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.
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Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
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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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And his hands would plait the priest's entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings.
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The world is the house of the strong.
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Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
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One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself.
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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
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They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish.
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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.
Denis Diderot
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There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.
Denis Diderot
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Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
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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.
Denis Diderot
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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot