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To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.

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
Compounds
Define
Greatness
Weakness
Darkness
Strength
Indict
Light
Smallness
Men
Compound

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Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
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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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Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
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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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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
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The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
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Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.
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Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
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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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I discuss with myself questions of politics, love, taste, or philosophy. I let my mind rove wantonly, give it free rein to followany idea, wise or mad that may present itself. My ideas are my harlots.
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From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
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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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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.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.
Denis Diderot
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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
Denis Diderot