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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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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
Atheism
Remains
Forever
Perishable
Race
Enlighten
Greater
Fatherland
Human
Enlightening
Humans
Merit
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More quotes by Denis Diderot

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Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.
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I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
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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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Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence they have relegated him to a sanctuary the walls of the temple restrict his view he does not exist outside of it.
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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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
Denis Diderot
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The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dice box in hand, shaking the dice.
Denis Diderot
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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.
Denis Diderot
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One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it
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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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The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
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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.
Denis Diderot
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What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot
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We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
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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You have to make it happen.
Denis Diderot
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The world is the house of the strong.
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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From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
Denis Diderot
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Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
Denis Diderot