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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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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
Pure
Animal
Reason
Better
Men
Astray
Guides
Instinct
Intelligence

More quotes by 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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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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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.
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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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Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.
Denis Diderot
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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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He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
Denis Diderot
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There are cats and cats.
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 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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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.
Denis Diderot
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Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot
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If the weather is too cold or rainy, I take shelter in the Regence Cafe, where I entertain myself by watching chess being played. Paris is the world center, and this cafe is the Paris centre for the finest skill at this game.
Denis Diderot
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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
Denis Diderot
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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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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
Denis Diderot
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If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
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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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
Denis Diderot