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If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

Denis Diderot

My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.
DENIS DIDEROT

Blow Clear Finding Friendship Way
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?
DENIS DIDEROT

Enlightenment Father Greatness Oneself Perish Save
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Convenience Moral Perception
Isn’t it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
DENIS DIDEROT

Better Chance Goodness Man
Only the bad man is alone.
DENIS DIDEROT

Alone Bad Man
Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.
DENIS DIDEROT

Greatness Mindset Moral Passion Raise Small Soul
How easy it is to tell tales!
DENIS DIDEROT

Easy Story
Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Savage Scale
There is only one duty; that is to be happy.
DENIS DIDEROT

Happiness Oneself Responsibility
For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.
DENIS DIDEROT

Myself Prostitute Thinking
The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
DENIS DIDEROT

Absurd Best Lover People
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Arouse Patriot Society
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

Discussion Love Mad Mindset Myself Politics Present Taste
We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man’s afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures.
DENIS DIDEROT

Himself Passion Pleasure Source
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
DENIS DIDEROT

Burden Gratitude Hard Time Hope

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

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If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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