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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

Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.
DENIS DIDEROT

Build Distance Infinite Mad Plain Separate Tower
Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?
DENIS DIDEROT

Enlightenment Father Greatness Oneself Perish Save
The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
DENIS DIDEROT

Absurd Best Lover People
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
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
DENIS DIDEROT

Creation Dangerous Mad Man Occasion Religion
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
DENIS DIDEROT

See Theory World
The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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

Enjoyment Heaven Man Nature Reason Receive
If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
DENIS DIDEROT

Beautiful Color Disturb Rainbow
Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Path Step Truth

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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