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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
Weakness
Darkness
Strength
Indict
Light
Smallness
Men
Compound
Compounds
Define
Greatness

More quotes by Denis Diderot

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Time, matter, space - all, it may be, are no more than a point.
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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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
Denis Diderot
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It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
Denis Diderot
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No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
Denis Diderot
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One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself.
Denis Diderot
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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.
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
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Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.
Denis Diderot
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Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.
Denis Diderot
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Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
Denis Diderot
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The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me.
Denis Diderot
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When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
Denis Diderot
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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.
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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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.
Denis Diderot
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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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Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
Denis Diderot
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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot