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We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

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
Objects
Frequently
Memories
Strings
Philosophy
Strikes
Feeling
Senses
Soma
Feelings
Instruments
Endowed
Also
Medicine
Surrounding
Body
Perception
Struck
Many
Memory
Strike

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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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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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What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
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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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Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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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.
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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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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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Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
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I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
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I feel, I think, I judge therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.
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From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
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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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If the weather is too cold or rainy, I take shelter in the Regence Cafe, where I entertain myself by watching chess being played. Paris is the world center, and this cafe is the Paris centre for the finest skill at this game.
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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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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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If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.
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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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A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.
Denis Diderot