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Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.

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
Soul
Return
Infancy
Without
Becomes
Returns
Great
Virtue
Morals
Things
Either
Minded
Small
Passions
Passion
Raise
Moral
Raises
Art
Creativity
Sublimity

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Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.
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It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,--who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,--who can work upon others at his pleasure.
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If there are one hundred thousand damned souls for one saved soul, the devil has always the advantage without having given up his son to death.
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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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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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Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
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If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
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My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.
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There are cats and cats.
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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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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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Anyone who takes it upon himself, on his private authority, to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.
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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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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.
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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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In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
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What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
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If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare.
Denis Diderot