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Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one’s innocence with the loss of one’s prejudices.

Denis Diderot

What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
DENIS DIDEROT

Existence Monster Survive
Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
At an early age I sucked up the milk of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato and Euripides, diluted with that of Moses and the prophets.
DENIS DIDEROT

Age Early Milk Myself
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
Isn’t it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
DENIS DIDEROT

Better Chance Goodness Man
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Arouse Patriot Society
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Demand Finding Oneself Seek Truth
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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

Anand Thakur
There are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.
DENIS DIDEROT

Adjust Change Force Need Point View
In order to get as much fame as one’s father one has to much more able than he.
DENIS DIDEROT

Fame Father Himself Order
There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.
DENIS DIDEROT

Hard Mad Oneself Suffering
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
All children are essentially criminal.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Crime Essential
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
DENIS DIDEROT

Abstract Relationship Sign Study
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Himself Man Nature Right
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
You have to make it happen.
DENIS DIDEROT

One Liner Yourself
Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
DENIS DIDEROT

Animal Guide Instinct Intelligence Reason
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Justice Obedience Virtue
I like better for one to say some foolish thing upon important matters than to be silent. That becomes the subject of discussion and dispute, and the truth is discovered.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
DENIS DIDEROT

Force Memories Ourselves Sentence Truth
There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
DENIS DIDEROT

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

Machine Order Ordinary Quality
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Impartial Path Step Truth

Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one’s innocence with the loss of one’s prejudices.

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Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one’s innocence with the loss of one’s prejudices.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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