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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.

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
Away
Compare
Book
Corners
Throw
Leibniz
Forgotten
Compares
Talent
Quietly
Books
Tempted
Dark
Talents
Dies
Corner

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.
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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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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
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Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?
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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How easy it is to tell tales!
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There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.
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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Good music is very close to primitive language.
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The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
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
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I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.
Denis Diderot
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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.
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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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.
Denis Diderot
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The world is the house of the strong.
Denis Diderot