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To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.

Denis Diderot

If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.
DENIS DIDEROT

Believe God Himself Touch
I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
And his hands would plait the priest’s entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Hands King Priest
Time, matter, space – all, it may be, are no more than a point.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.
DENIS DIDEROT

Love Rob
Good music is very close to primitive language.
DENIS DIDEROT

Goodness Language Music Primitive
He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
DENIS DIDEROT

Gentle Himself Man Nature
The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre
DENIS DIDEROT

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

Anand Thakur
Only the bad man is alone.
DENIS DIDEROT

Alone Bad Man
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
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
Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evil Genius World
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Arouse Patriot Society
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Vast Wild

To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.

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To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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