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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

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
Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?
DENIS DIDEROT

Action Direction Generous Object
No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
DENIS DIDEROT

Enjoyment Heaven Man Nature Reason Receive
The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Father God Himself
Does anyone really know where they’re going to?
DENIS DIDEROT

Direction Journey Path
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
You have to make it happen.
DENIS DIDEROT

One Liner Yourself
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
DENIS DIDEROT

Desire Fact Production True Willing
And his hands would plait the priest’s entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings.
DENIS DIDEROT

Hands King Priest
When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the heartsof others.
DENIS DIDEROT

Heart Known Wisdom
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
DENIS DIDEROT

Necessary Order Shake Willing
Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.
DENIS DIDEROT

Build Distance Infinite Mad Plain Separate Tower
Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.
DENIS DIDEROT

Genius Madness Raise Status
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
DENIS DIDEROT

Burden Gratitude Hard Time Hope
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz , one is tempted to throw away one’s books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.
DENIS DIDEROT

Compare Corner Forget Talent Temptation

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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