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First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.

Denis Diderot

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

Machine Order Ordinary Quality
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
Every man has his dignity. I’m willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
DENIS DIDEROT

Dignity Man Myself Willing
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.
DENIS DIDEROT

Destroy Man Pronounce
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
One composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few.
DENIS DIDEROT

Composition Rich
Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Step Truth
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
Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
DENIS DIDEROT

Atheist God Injurious
Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
DENIS DIDEROT

Man Philosophy Poster Religious
The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
DENIS DIDEROT

Adult Eyes Infant Man Old
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
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
DENIS DIDEROT

Association Catch Ourselves Vice
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
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

First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.

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First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.

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Popular Authors

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