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A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

Denis Diderot

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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
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Diderot
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Ever
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Skepticism

More quotes by Denis Diderot

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Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.
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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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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Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
Denis Diderot
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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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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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Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
Denis Diderot
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Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
Denis Diderot
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All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.
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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Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
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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How easy it is to tell tales!
Denis Diderot
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I discuss with myself questions of politics, love, taste, or philosophy. I let my mind rove wantonly, give it free rein to followany idea, wise or mad that may present itself. My ideas are my harlots.
Denis Diderot
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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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To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.
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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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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Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
Denis Diderot
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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
Denis Diderot