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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

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

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

Anand Thakur
Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.
DENIS DIDEROT

Genius Madness Raise Status
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
What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Comedy Oneself Play World
Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
DENIS DIDEROT

Atheist God Injurious
A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.
DENIS DIDEROT

Belief Law Myself Nation People Thinking
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
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
One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Demand Finding Oneself Seek Truth
I am wholly yours – you are everything to me; we will sustain each other in all the ills of life it may please fate to inflict upon us; you will soothe my troubles; I will comfort you in yours.
DENIS DIDEROT

Each Other Life Trouble Yourself
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
DENIS DIDEROT

Burden Gratitude Hard Time Hope
Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does.
DENIS DIDEROT

Destroy Passion Philosophy Prejudice
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
Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
DENIS DIDEROT

Machine Order Ordinary Quality
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

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

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It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

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Popular Authors

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