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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.

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
Never
Intelligent
Among
Asylum
Lucky
Asylums
Stupid
Wisest
Crazy
Drive
Woman
Mets
Beautiful
Fit
Enough
Ugly

More quotes by 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?
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Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.
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In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
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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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Only the bad man is alone.
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There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
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A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
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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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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.
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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.
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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
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I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
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Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.
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The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
Denis Diderot
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When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them.
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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Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
Denis Diderot
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The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
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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Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot