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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
Greater
Fatherland
Human
Enlightening
Humans
Merit
Save
Atheism
Remains
Forever
Perishable
Race
Enlighten

More quotes by Denis Diderot

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Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
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In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
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Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
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Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
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Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
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Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.
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We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
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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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We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
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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.
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Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
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Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.
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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.
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Those authors into whose hands nature has placed a magic wand, with which they no sooner touch us than we forget the unhappiness in life, than the darkness leaves our soul, and we are reconciled to existence, should be placed among the benefactors of the human race.
Denis Diderot
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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.
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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The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
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