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

More quotes by Denis Diderot

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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot
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Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
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The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.
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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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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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My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.
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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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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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
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The world is the house of the strong.
Denis Diderot
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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.
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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There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
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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But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!
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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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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Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
Denis Diderot