"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."[1] [see comment]
"We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter."
"Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian... Other men walk in darkness; the philosopher, who has the same passions, acts only after reflection; he walks through the night, but it is preceded by a torch. The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations. He does not confuse truth with plausibility; he takes for truth what is true, for forgery what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable. The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy."
"The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid."
Denis Diderot
[1] More precisely: "And his hands would plait the priest's entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings."
Sunday, July 01, 2007
3 comments:
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"We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter."
ReplyDeleteAs Mark Twain wrote, "Truth is our most precious commodity. We must economize it."
Actually, that first Diderot quote is the paraphrase attributed to Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams during their famous correspondence.
ReplyDeleteDiderot was awesome.Another favorite of mine:
ReplyDelete"To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!"
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