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Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

Denis Diderot

Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
DENIS DIDEROT

Animal Guide Instinct Intelligence Reason
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
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
In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Education Entertainment Man Preference
We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
DENIS DIDEROT

Bitter Lying Swallow Truth
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
If a misplaced admiration shows imbecility, an affected criticism shows vice of character. Expose thyself rather to appear a beast than false.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Time, matter, space – all, it may be, are no more than a point.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.
DENIS DIDEROT

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

Destroy Man Pronounce
Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evidence Integrity Virtue
Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Path Step Truth
I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.
DENIS DIDEROT

Desire Hope Immortal Myself
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
DENIS DIDEROT

Believe God Important
If ever anybody dedicated his whole life to the “enthusiasm for truth and justice” using this phrase in the good sense it was Diderot.
DENIS DIDEROT

Dedication Enthusiasm Goodness Life Sense

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

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Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

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