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Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.

Denis Diderot

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
DENIS DIDEROT

Machine Order Ordinary Quality
When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
DENIS DIDEROT

Allow Music Painting Performance Poetry Superstitious
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.
DENIS DIDEROT

Build Distance Infinite Mad Plain Separate Tower
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
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
DENIS DIDEROT

Association Catch Ourselves Vice
If a misplaced admiration shows imbecility, an affected criticism shows vice of character. Expose thyself rather to appear a beast than false.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Good music is very close to primitive language.
DENIS DIDEROT

Goodness Language Music Primitive
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Arouse Patriot Society
Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Savage Scale
Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.
DENIS DIDEROT

Greatness Passion Soul
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
DENIS DIDEROT

See Theory World
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
DENIS DIDEROT

Bad Country Goodness Government Moral
People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
DENIS DIDEROT

Desire Fact Production True Willing
One composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few.
DENIS DIDEROT

Composition Rich

Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.

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Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.

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