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Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?

Denis Diderot

My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.
DENIS DIDEROT

Blow Clear Finding Friendship Way
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Justice Obedience Virtue
All children are essentially criminal.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Crime Essential
Distance is a great promoter of admiration.
DENIS DIDEROT

Admire Distance Greatness Promote
Time, matter, space – all, it may be, are no more than a point.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
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
If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
DENIS DIDEROT

Beautiful Color Disturb Rainbow
A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evidence Question Truth
To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.
DENIS DIDEROT

Definition Himself Man Strength Weakness
Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
DENIS DIDEROT

God Novel Rare
Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Force Obedience Power Violence
Does anyone really know where they’re going to?
DENIS DIDEROT

Direction Journey Path
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
Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.
DENIS DIDEROT

Philosophy Religion Separate
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
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
My ideas are my whores.
DENIS DIDEROT

Ideas One Liner Whore
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
The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
DENIS DIDEROT

Blood God Myself Sin
For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.
DENIS DIDEROT

Myself Prostitute Thinking
Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.
DENIS DIDEROT

Greatness Passion Soul
Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
DENIS DIDEROT

Man Philosophy Poster Religious
Isn’t it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
DENIS DIDEROT

Better Chance Goodness Man
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Arouse Patriot Society
The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.
DENIS DIDEROT

Divorce Improvement Marriage Partner Population Possible
And his hands would plait the priest’s entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Hands King Priest
Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?

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Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?

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