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The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre

Denis Diderot

All children are essentially criminal.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Crime Essential
People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Give, but, if possible, spare the poor man the shame of begging.
DENIS DIDEROT

Beg Compassionate Man Poor Possible Shame
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
DENIS DIDEROT

See Theory World
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Vast Wild
The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.
DENIS DIDEROT

Beautiful Crazy Drive Enough Wisdom Woman
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
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?
DENIS DIDEROT

Enlightenment Father Greatness Oneself Perish Save
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
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
Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.
DENIS DIDEROT

Greatness Passion Soul
Distance is a great promoter of admiration.
DENIS DIDEROT

Admire Distance Greatness Promote
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
Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
DENIS DIDEROT

God Novel Rare
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Command Himself Man Nature Right

The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre

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The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre

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