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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
Define
Greatness
Weakness
Darkness
Strength
Indict
Light
Smallness
Men
Compound
Compounds

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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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We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
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Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
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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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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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Only the bad man is alone.
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Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.
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Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
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How easy it is to tell tales!
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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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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 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 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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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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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.
Denis Diderot
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There are cats and cats.
Denis Diderot
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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot
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And his hands would plait the priest's entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot