Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
DENIS DIDEROTIt has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.
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Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
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The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
DENIS DIDEROT -
In order to get as much fame as one’s father one has to much more able than he.
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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.
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In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.
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When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the heartsof others.
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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
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Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
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If there are one hundred thousand damned souls for one saved soul, the devil has always the advantage without having given up his son to death.
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The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.
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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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If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.
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Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.
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When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz , one is tempted to throw away one’s books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.
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Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
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Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
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The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
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You have to make it happen.
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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
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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.
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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 -
Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.
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How easy it is to tell tales!
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It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
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There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
DENIS DIDEROT