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A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

Denis Diderot

In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Education Entertainment Man Preference
One composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few.
DENIS DIDEROT

Composition Rich
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
Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.
DENIS DIDEROT

Creative Experiment Genius Nature Observation
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Himself Man Nature Right
Time, matter, space – all, it may be, are no more than a point.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the heartsof others.
DENIS DIDEROT

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

Believe God Himself Touch
We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.
DENIS DIDEROT

Feeling Instrument Memories Object Surround
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
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
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
There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.
DENIS DIDEROT

Death Fear Happiness Justice Virtue
Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
DENIS DIDEROT

Machine Order Ordinary Quality
Good music is very close to primitive language.
DENIS DIDEROT

Goodness Language Music Primitive
It is raining bombs on the house of the Lord. I go in fear and trembling lest one of these terrible bombers gets into difficulties.
DENIS DIDEROT

Difficult God Home Raining
Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Force Obedience Power Violence
The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.
DENIS DIDEROT

Beautiful Crazy Drive Enough Wisdom Woman
Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Savage Scale
The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
DENIS DIDEROT

Adult Eyes Infant Man Old
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
The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
DENIS DIDEROT

Absurd Best Lover People
There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
DENIS DIDEROT

Happiness Oneself Passion
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.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
DENIS DIDEROT

Blood God Myself Sin
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Justice Obedience Virtue

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

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A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

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Popular Authors

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