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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

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?
DENIS DIDEROT

Action Direction Generous Object
Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.
DENIS DIDEROT

Destroy Doctor Preserve Success Work
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
DENIS DIDEROT

Association Catch Ourselves Vice
A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.
DENIS DIDEROT

Belief Law Myself Nation People Thinking
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

Feeling Instrument Memories Object Surround
In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Education Entertainment Man Preference
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

Authority Break Goodness Oneself Privacy
Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.
DENIS DIDEROT

Book Greatness Literature Poet Taste
One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Demand Finding Oneself Seek Truth
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Vast Wild
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
DENIS DIDEROT

Necessary Order Shake Willing
No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
DENIS DIDEROT

Enjoyment Heaven Man Nature Reason Receive
Only the bad man is alone.
DENIS DIDEROT

Alone Bad Man
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

Creation Dangerous Mad Man Occasion Religion
Isn’t it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
DENIS DIDEROT

Better Chance Goodness Man
Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ‘My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.’ This stranger is a theologian.
DENIS DIDEROT

Finding Forest Night Order Stranger Wander Yourself

The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.

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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.

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