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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

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
Does anyone really know where they’re going to?
DENIS DIDEROT

Direction Journey Path
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
DENIS DIDEROT

Abstract Relationship Sign Study
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
DENIS DIDEROT

Oneself Path Step
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Expectation Finding Myself Truth
He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
DENIS DIDEROT

Gentle Himself Man Nature
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
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Only the bad man is alone.
DENIS DIDEROT

Alone Bad Man
All children are essentially criminal.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Crime Essential
If ever anybody dedicated his whole life to the “enthusiasm for truth and justice” using this phrase in the good sense it was Diderot.
DENIS DIDEROT

Dedication Enthusiasm Goodness Life Sense
We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
DENIS DIDEROT

Bitter Lying Swallow Truth
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
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
DENIS DIDEROT

Control Order People Yourself
Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evil Genius World
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

Definition Himself Man Strength Weakness
Give, but, if possible, spare the poor man the shame of begging.
DENIS DIDEROT

Beg Compassionate Man Poor Possible Shame
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
The enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Justice Obedience Virtue
Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Savage Scale
If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.
DENIS DIDEROT

Essential Kind Respect Wicked Yourself
Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.
DENIS DIDEROT

Philosophy Religion Separate
Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evil Goodness High Master Writing
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
DENIS DIDEROT

Necessary Order Shake Willing
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
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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