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What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
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Art Critic
Art Theorist
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Encyclopédistes
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Literary Theorist
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Diderot
Therefore
Steps
Philosophy
Truth
Impartially
Wells
Examined
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Skepticism
Well
Towards
First
Step

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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
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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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Le public ne sait pas toujours de sirer le vrai. Thepublicdoesnot alwaysknowhow todesirethetruth.
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Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
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Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
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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.
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In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
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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.
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La poe sie veutquelque chose d'e norme, debarbare et de sauvage. Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
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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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The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.
Denis Diderot
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Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
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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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Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
Denis Diderot
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The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
Denis Diderot
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Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
Denis Diderot
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The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.
Denis Diderot