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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

Denis Diderot

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
There is only one duty; that is to be happy.
DENIS DIDEROT

Happiness Oneself Responsibility
Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.
DENIS DIDEROT

Book Greatness Literature Poet Taste
Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
DENIS DIDEROT

Atheist God Injurious
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Justice Obedience Virtue
Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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

Finding Forest Night Order Stranger Wander Yourself
Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
DENIS DIDEROT

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

Genius Madness Raise Status
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
The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Demand Finding Oneself Seek Truth
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Himself Man Nature Right
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Vast Wild
In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Education Entertainment Man Preference

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

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Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.

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