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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.

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
Tasks
Superstitions
Poetry
Temperament
Painting
Goodbye
Belief
Perform
Age
Birthday
Music
Excellence
Dulling
Human
Task
Superstition
Humans
Allowed
Farewell

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To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly.
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Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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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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The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dice box in hand, shaking the dice.
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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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Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
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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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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.
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In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
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The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
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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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If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
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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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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.
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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
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Le public ne sait pas toujours de sirer le vrai. Thepublicdoesnot alwaysknowhow todesirethetruth.
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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
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