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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

Denis Diderot

And his hands would plait the priest’s entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Hands King Priest
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Himself Man Nature Right
To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Anyone who takes it upon himself, on his private authority, to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.
DENIS DIDEROT

Authority Break Goodness Oneself Privacy
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
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Expectation Finding Myself Truth
A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evidence Question Truth
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
Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.
DENIS DIDEROT

Greatness Mindset Moral Passion Raise Small Soul
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
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
DENIS DIDEROT

Believe God Important
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
At an early age I sucked up the milk of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato and Euripides, diluted with that of Moses and the prophets.
DENIS DIDEROT

Age Early Milk Myself
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
DENIS DIDEROT

Oneself Path Step
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
There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

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