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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

We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man’s afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures.
DENIS DIDEROT

Himself Passion Pleasure Source
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Vast Wild
My ideas are my whores.
DENIS DIDEROT

Ideas One Liner Whore
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Savage Scale
My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.
DENIS DIDEROT

Blow Clear Finding Friendship Way
There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge, observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
DENIS DIDEROT

Combination Experiment Knowledge Principle Reflection Result
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
DENIS DIDEROT

Best Doctor Finding Oneself Run
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
There is only one duty; that is to be happy.
DENIS DIDEROT

Happiness Oneself Responsibility
First move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes.
DENIS DIDEROT

Astonishment Eyes Move Myself
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
DENIS DIDEROT

Bad Country Goodness Government Moral

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?

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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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