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Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.

Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
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There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
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How easy it is to tell tales!
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Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
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The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre
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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.
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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
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But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!
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When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz , one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.
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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.
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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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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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The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
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All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.
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Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.
Denis Diderot
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Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
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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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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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What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
Denis Diderot