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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

Denis Diderot

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

Command Himself Man Nature Right
Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.
DENIS DIDEROT

Greatness Mindset Moral Passion Raise Small Soul
Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evidence Integrity Virtue
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
To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.
DENIS DIDEROT

Essential Kind Respect Wicked Yourself
How easy it is to tell tales!
DENIS DIDEROT

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

Destroy Man Pronounce
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
Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
DENIS DIDEROT

Bad Confusion Different Follow Reveal Truth
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
Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism.
DENIS DIDEROT

Atheist God Injurious
First move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes.
DENIS DIDEROT

Astonishment Eyes Move Myself
In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.
DENIS DIDEROT

Children Education Entertainment Man Preference

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

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The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

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