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Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ‘My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.’ This stranger is a theologian.

Denis Diderot

Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Step Truth
Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.
DENIS DIDEROT

Destroy Doctor Preserve Success Work
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
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Himself Man Nature Right
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
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
DENIS DIDEROT

Best Doctor Finding Oneself Run
Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one’s innocence with the loss of one’s prejudices.
DENIS DIDEROT

Bad Company Innocent Instruction Loss One Prejudice
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Justice Obedience Virtue
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
My ideas are my whores.
DENIS DIDEROT

Ideas One Liner Whore
Distance is a great promoter of admiration.
DENIS DIDEROT

Admire Distance Greatness Promote
For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.
DENIS DIDEROT

Myself Prostitute Thinking
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Impartial Path Step Truth
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Convenience Moral Perception
Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.
DENIS DIDEROT

Design Disturb Trouble True
He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
DENIS DIDEROT

Gentle Himself Man Nature

Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ‘My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.’ This stranger is a theologian.

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Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ‘My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.’ This stranger is a theologian.

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