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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
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In Order To Shake

Denis Diderot
...
In Order To Shake A Hypothesis, It Is Sometimes Not Necessary To Do Anything More Than Push It As Far As It Will Go.

Understanding the Quote: "in order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to..."

This quote by Denis Diderot reflects deeply on the theme of order. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Order, Literature, Sometimes, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Denis Diderot interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot is celebrated for insightful thoughts on order and literature. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Order
Literature
Sometimes
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Whatever Dressing One Gives To Mushrooms, To Whatever Sauces Our Apiciuses Put Them, They Are Not Really Good But To Be Sent Back To The Dungheap Where They Are Born.
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There Are Things I Can't Force. I Must Adjust. There Are Times When The Greatest Change Needed Is A Change Of My Viewpoint.
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It Is Raining Bombs On The House Of The Lord. I Go In Fear And Trembling Lest One Of These Terrible Bombers Gets Into Difficulties.
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It Is Not Human Nature We Should Accuse But The Despicable Conventions That Pervert It.
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From Fanaticism To Barbarism Is Only One Step.
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The Best Doctor Is The One You Run To And Can't Find.
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Gaiety Is A Quality Of Ordinary Men. Genius Always Presupposes Some Disorder In The Machine.
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You Live As If You Were Destined To Live Forever, No Thought Of Your Frailty Ever Enters Your Head, Of How Much Time Has Already Gone By You Take No Heed. You Squander Time As If You Drew From A Full And Abundant Supply, So All The While That Day Which You Bestow On Some Person Or Thing Is Perhaps Your Last. You Have All The Fears Of Mortals And All The Desires Of Immortals… What Foolish Forgetfulness Of Mortality To Defer Wise Resolutions To The Fiftieth Or Sixtieth Year, And To Intend To Begin Life At A Point To Which Few Have Attained.
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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.
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But If You Will Recall The History Of Our Civil Troubles, You Will See Half The Nation Bathe Itself, Out Of Piety, In The Blood Of The Other Half, And Violate The Fundamental Feelings Of Humanity In Order To Sustain The Cause Of God: As Though It Were Necessary To Cease To Be A Man In Order To Prove Oneself Religious!
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The First Promise Exchanged By Two Beings Of Flesh Was At The Foot Of A Rock That Was Crumbling Into Dust; They Took As Witness For Their Constancy A Sky That Is Not The Same For A Single Instant; Everything Changed In Them And Around Them, And They Believed Their Hearts Free Of Vicissitudes. O Children! Always Children!
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What A Fine Comedy This World Would Be If One Did Not Play A Part In It.
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La Poe Sie Veutquelque Chose D'e Norme, Debarbare Et De Sauvage. Poetry Needs Something On The Scale Of The Grand, The Barbarous, The Savage.
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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 False What Is False, For Doubtful What Is Doubtful, And Probable What Is Probable. The Philosophical Spirit Is Thus A Spirit Of Observation And Accuracy.
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When Shall We See Poets Born? After A Time Of Disasters And Great Misfortunes, When Harrowed Nations Begin To Breathe Again. And Then, Shaken By The Terror Of Such Spectacles, Imaginations Will Paint Things Entirely Strange To Those Who Have Not Witnessed Them.
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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.
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It Is Not The Man Who Is Beside Himself, But He Who Is Cool And Collected,--who Is Master Of His Countenance, Of His Voice, Of His Actions, Of His Gestures, Of Every Part Of His Play,--who Can Work Upon Others At His Pleasure.
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Integrity Is The Evidence Of All Civil Virtues.
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To Say That Man Is A Compound Of Strength And Weakness, Light And Darkness, Smallness And Greatness, Is Not To Indict Him, It Is To Define Him.
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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.
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I Discuss With Myself Questions Of Politics, Love, Taste, Or Philosophy. I Let My Mind Rove Wantonly, Give It Free Rein To Followany Idea, Wise Or Mad That May Present Itself. My Ideas Are My Harlots.
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Man Was Born To Live With His Fellow Human Beings. Separate Him, Isolate Him, His Character Will Go Bad, A Thousand Ridiculous Affects Will Invade His Heart, Extravagant Thoughts Will Germinate In His Brain, Like Thorns In An Uncultivated Land.
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If There Are One Hundred Thousand Damned Souls For One Saved Soul, The Devil Has Always The Advantage Without Having Given Up His Son To Death.
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The Fact Is That She Was Terribly Undressed And I Was Extremely Undressed Too. The Fact Is That I Still Had My Hand Where She Didn't Have Anything And She Had Hers Where The Same Wasn't Quite True Of Me. The Fact Is That I Found Myself Underneath Her And Consequently She Found Herself On Top Of Me.
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Bitter
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No Man Has Received From Nature The Right To Command His Fellow Human Beings.
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Do You See This Egg? With This You Can Topple Every Theological Theory, Every Church Or Temple In The World.
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In Order To Get As Much Fame As One's Father One Has To Much More Able Than He.
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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.
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Memories
Literature
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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.
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Il Ne Faut Point Donner D'esprit A' Ses Personnages; Mais Savoir Les Placer Dans Des Circonstances Qui Leur En Donnent. You Should Not Give Wit To Your Characters, But Know Instead How To Put Them In Situations Which Will Make Them Witty.
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Character
Giving
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Blow
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I Am More Affected By The Attractions Of Virtue Than By The Deformities Of Vice; I Turn Gently Away From The Wicked And I Fly To Meet The Good. If There Is In A Literary Work, In A Character, In A Picture, In A Statue, A Beautiful Spot, That Is Where My Eyes Rest; I See Only That, I Remember Only That, All The Rest Is Well-nigh Forgotten. What Becomes Of Me When The Whole Work Is Beautiful!
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Should
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Happiness
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If Reason Be A Gift Of Heaven, And We Can Say As Much Of Faith, Heaven Has Certainly Made Us Two Gifts Not Only Incompatible, But In Direct Contradiction To Each Other. In Order To Solve The Difficulty, We Are Compelled To Say Either That Faith Is A Chimera Or That Reason Is Useless.
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Two
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Successful
Doctors
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And His Hands Would Plait The Priest's Entrails, For Want Of A Rope, To Strangle Kings.
Kings
Hands
Rope
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Race
Hands
Soul
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Divorce
Population
Literature
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Fall
Dark
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Ephemeral
Gentleness And Peacefulness Regulate Our Proceedings; Theirs Are Dictated By Fury. We Employ Reason, They Accumulate Faggots. They Preach Nothing But Love, And Breathe Nothing But Blood. Their Words Are Humane, But Their Hearts Are Cruel.
Heart
Blood
Atheism
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Men
Literature
May
The Best Mannered People Make The Most Absurd Lovers.
People
Lovers
Sexuality
To Be Born In Imbecility, In The Midst Of Pain And Crisis; To Be The Plaything Of Ignorance, Error, Need, Sickness, Wickedness, And Passions; To Return Step By Step To Imbecility, From The Time Of Lisping To That Of Doting; To Live Among Knaves And Charlatans Of All Kinds; To Die Between One Man Who Takes Your Pulse And Another Who Troubles Your Head; Never To Know Where You Come From, Why You Come And Where You Are Going! That Is What Is Called The Most Important Gift Of Our Parents And Nature. Life.
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Fear
Ignorance
There Is No Good Father Who Would Want To Resemble Our Heavenly Father.
Father
Want
Heavenly
The Pit Of A Theatre Is The One Place Where The Tears Of Virtuous And Wicked Men Alike Are Mingled.
Men
Theatre
Wicked
Mankind Have Banned The Divinity From Their Presence; They Have Relegated Him To A Sanctuary; The Walls Of The Temple Restrict His View; He Does Not Exist Outside Of It.
Wall
Views
Religion
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Une Danse Est Un Poe' Me. A Dance Is A Poem.
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Animal
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Comfort
En Ge Ne Ral, Plus Un Peuple Est Civilise , Poli, Moins Ses Moeurs Sont Poe Tiques; Tout S'affaiblit En S'adoucissant. Ingeneral, Themore Civilized And Refinedthepeople, The Less Poetic Are Its Morals; Everything Weakens As It Mellows.
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Poetic
Plus
The Infant Runs Toward It With Its Eyes Closed, The Adult Is Stationary, The Old Man Approaches It With His Back Turned.
Running
Eye
Men
One Composition Is Meagre, Though It Has Many Figures; Another Is Rich, Though It Has Few.
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Figures
Composition
The Good Of The People Must Be The Great Purpose Of Government. By The Laws Of Nature And Of Reason, The Governors Are Invested With Power To That End. And The Greatest Good Of The People Is Liberty. It Is To The State What Health Is To The Individual.
Law
Government
People
Jacques Said That His Master Said That Everything Good Or Evil We Encounter Here Below Was Written On High.
Evil
Encounters
Masters
Passions Destroy More Prejudices Than Philosophy Does.
Philosophy
Passion
Doe
You Risk Just As Much In Being Credulous As In Being Suspicious.
Risk
Suspicious
If There Were A Reason For Preferring The Christian Religion To Natural Religion, It Would Be Because The Former Offers Us, On The Nature Of God And Man, Enlightenment That The Latter Lacks. Now, This Is Not At All The Case; For Christianity, Instead Of Clarifying, Gives Rise To An Infinite Multitude Of Obscurities And Difficulties.
Christian
Men
Giving
Whether God Exists Or Does Not Exist, He Has Come To Rank Among The Most Sublime And Useless Truths.
Sublime
Doe
Useless
If Your Little Savage Were Left To Himself And Be Allowed To Retain All His Ignorance, He Would In Time Join The Infant's Reasoning To The Grown Man's Passion, He Would Strangle His Father And Sleep With His Mother.
Mother
Father
Passion
You Can Be Sure That A Painter Reveals Himself In His Work As Much As And More Than A Writer Does In His.
Doe
Painter
We Are Constantly Railing Against The Passions; We Ascribe To Them All Of Man's Afflictions, And We Forget That They Are Also The Source Of All His Pleasures.
Passion
Men
Suffering
When Superstition Is Allowed To Perform The Task Of Old Age In Dulling The Human Temperament, We Can Say Goodbye To All Excellence In Poetry, In Painting, And In Music.
Birthday
Goodbye
Farewell
The Philosopher Has Never Killed Any Priests, Whereas The Priest Has Killed A Great Many Philosophers.
Spiritual
Atheist
Science
Watch Out For The Fellow Who Talks About Putting Things In Order! Putting Things In Order Always Means Getting Other People Under Your Control.
Mean
Power
Order
I Can Be Expected To Look For Truth But Not To Find It.
Truth
Looks
Expected
Scepticism Is The First Step Towards Truth.
Religion
Atheism
Firsts
There Is No Moral Precept That Does Not Have Something Inconvenient About It.
Inspirational
Literature
Doe
The General Interest Of The Masses Might Take The Place Of The Insight Of Genius If It Were Allowed Freedom Of Action.
Freedom
Might
Genius
Distance Is A Great Promoter Of Admiration.
Distance
Admiration
Promoters
At An Early Age I Sucked Up The Milk Of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato And Euripides, Diluted With That Of Moses And The Prophets.
Plato
Atheism
Age
Bad Company Is As Instructive As Licentiousness. One Makes Up For The Loss Of One's Innocence With The Loss Of One's Prejudices.
Loss
Religion
Prejudice
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.
Art
Passion
Creativity
Does Anyone Really Know Where They're Going To?
Doe
Knows
Scepticism Is The First Step Toward Truth.
Philosophy
Science
Steps
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!
Love
Passion
Order
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.
Sublime
Essentials
Thieves
I Am Wholly Yours - You Are Everything To Me; We Will Sustain Each Other In All The Ills Of Life It May Please Fate To Inflict Upon Us; You Will Soothe My Troubles; I Will Comfort You In Yours.
Fate
Comfort
May
This Root [the Potato], No Matter How Much You Prepare It, Is Tasteless And Floury. It Cannot Pass For An Agreeable Food, But It Supplies A Food Sufficiently Abundant And Sufficiently Healthy For Men Who Ask Only To Sustain Themselves. The Potato Is Criticized With Reason For Being Windy, But What Matters Windiness For The Vigorous Organisms Of Peasants And Laborers?
Men
Vegetables
Roots
All Children Are Essentially Criminal.
Children
Criminals
Justice Is The First Virtue Of Those Who Command, And Stops The Complaints Of Those Who Obey.
Justice
Literature
Firsts
If You Disturb The Colors Of The Rainbow, The Rainbow Is No Longer Beautiful.
Beautiful
Order
Color
I Have Not The Hope Of Being Immortal, Because The Desire Of It Has Not Given Me That Vanity.
Vanity
Desire
Given
Shakespeare's Fault Is Not The Greatest Into Which A Poet May Fall. It Merely Indicates A Deficiency Of Taste.
Fall
May
Taste
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.
Animal
Men
Reason
Ignorance Is Less Remote From The Truth Than Prejudice.
Ignorance
Prejudice
There Is Not A Musselman Alive Who Would Not Imagine That He Was Performing An Action Pleasing To God And His Holy Prophet By Exterminating Every Christian On Earth, While The Christians Are Scarcely More Tolerant On Their Side.
Christian
Holy Prophet
Religion
Posterity For The Philosopher Is What The Other World Is For The Religious Man.
Religious
Philosophy
Men
To Prove The Gospels By A Miracle Is To Prove An Absurdity By Something Contrary To Nature.
Miracle
Absurdity
Prove
Those Who Fear The Facts Will Forever Try To Discredit The Fact-finders.
Forever
Trying
Facts
Tous Les Jours On Couche Avec Des Femmes Qu'on N'aime Pas, Et L'on Ne Couche Pas Avec Des Femmes Qu'on Aime. Every Day We Sleep With Women We Do Not Love And Don't Sleep With The Women We Do Love.
Sleep
Femme
There Is Only One Duty; That Is To Be Happy.
Duty
I Feel, I Think, I Judge; Therefore, A Part Of Organized Matter Like Me Is Capable Of Feeling, Thinking, And Judging.
Thinking
Judging
Feelings
In Order To Shake A Hypothesis, It Is Sometimes Not Necessary To Do Anything More Than Push It As Far As It Will Go.
Order
Literature
Sometimes
Two Qualities Essential For The Artist: Moralityand Perspective.
Artist
Two
Perspective
What Is This World? A Complex Whole, Subject To Endless Revolutions. All These Revolutions Show A Continual Tendency To Destruction; A Swift Succession Of Beings Who Follow One Another, Press Forward, And Vanish; A Fleeting Symmetry; The Order Of A Moment. I Reproached You Just Now With Estimating The Perfection Of Things By Your Own Capacity; And I Might Accuse You Here Of Measuring Its Duration By The Length Of Your Own Days.
Order
Perfection
World
To Describe Women, The Pen Should Be Dipped In The Humid Colors Of The Rainbow, And The Paper Dried With The Dust Gathered From The Wings Of A Butterfly.
Women
Butterfly
Dust
When We Know To Read Our Own Hearts, We Acquire Wisdom Of The Heartsof Others.
Heart
Knows
Acquire
Although A Man May Wear Fine Clothing, If He Lives Peacefully; And Is Good, Self-possessed, Has Faith And Is Pure; And If He Does Not Hurt Any Living Being, He Is A Holy Man.
Hurt
Men
Self
A Nation Which Thinks That It Is Belief In God And Not Good Law Which Makes People Honest Does Not Seem To Me Very Advanced.
Thinking
Law
People
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.
Memories
Philosophy
Medicine
My Ideas Are My Whores.
Ideas
They Mistake The First Manifestations Of A Developing Sexual Nature For The Voice Of God Calling Them To Himself; And It Is Precisely When Nature Is Inciting Them That They Embrace A Fashion Of Life Contrary To Nature's Wish.
Fashion
Mistake
Voice
It Seems To Me That If One Had Kept Silence Up To Now Regarding Religion, People Would Still Be Submerged In The Most Grotesque And Dangerous Superstition ... Regarding Government, We Would Still Be Groaning Under The Bonds Of Feudal Government ... Regarding Morals, We Would Still Be Having To Learn What Is Virtue And What Is Vice. To Forbid All These Discussions, The Only Ones Worthy Of Occupying A Good Mind, Is To Perpetuate The Reign Of Ignorance And Barbarism.
Ignorance
Government
People
The Man Who First Pronounced The Barbarous Word God Ought To Have Been Immediately Destroyed.
God
Religious
Men
It Is Very Important Not To Mistake Hemlock For Parsley, But To Believe Or Not Believe In God Is Not Important At All.
God
Religious
Mistake
Poetry Must Have Something In It That Is Barbaric, Vast And Wild.
Poetry
Poetry Is
Barbaric
All Things Must Be Examined, Debated, Investigated Without Exception And Without Regard For Anyone's Feelings... We Must Run Roughshod Over All These Ancient Puerilities, Overturn The Barriers That Reason Never Erected, Give Back To The Arts And Sciences The Liberty That Is So Precious To Them.
Running
Art
Giving
The Bad Gives Rise To The Good, The Good Inspires The Better, The Better Produces The Excellent, The Excellent Is Followed By The Bizarre
Giving
Inspire
Excellent
How Old The World Is! I Walk Between Two Eternities.... What Is My Fleeting Existence In Comparison With That Decaying Rock, That Valley Digging Its Channel Ever Deeper, That Forest That Is Tottering And Those Great Masses Above My Head About To Fall? I See The Marble Of Tombs Crumbling Into Dust; And Yet I Don't Want To Die!
Fall
Rocks
Dust
The Enjoyment Of Freedom Which Could Be Exercised Without Any Motivation Would Be The Real Hallmark Of A Maniac.
Motivation
Real
Would Be
If The Weather Is Too Cold Or Rainy, I Take Shelter In The Regence Cafe, Where I Entertain Myself By Watching Chess Being Played. Paris Is The World Center, And This Cafe Is The Paris Centre For The Finest Skill At This Game.
Learning
Games
Skills
Le Public Ne Sait Pas Toujours De Sirer Le Vrai. Thepublicdoesnot Alwaysknowhow Todesirethetruth.
Every Man Has His Dignity. I'm Willing To Forget Mine, But At My Own Discretion And Not When Someone Else Tells Me To.
Men
Literature
Dignity
The Christian Religion Teaches Us To Imitate A God That Is Cruel, Insidious, Jealous, And Implacable In His Wrath.
God
Christian
Religious
L'homme Est Ne Pour La Socie Te ; Se Parez-le, Isolez-le, Ses Ide Es Se De Suniront, Son Caracte' Re Se Tournera, Mille Affections Ridicules S'e Le' Veront Dans Son Coeur; Des 274 Pense Es Extravagantes Germeront Dans Son Esprit, Comme Les Ronces Dans Une Terre Sauvage. Man Is Born To Live In Society: Separate Him, Isolate Him, And His Ideas Disintegrate, His Character Changes, A Thousand Ridiculous Affectations Rise Up In His Heart; Extreme Thoughts Take Hold In His Mind, Like The Brambles In A Wild Field.
Heart
Character
Son
Oh! How Near Are Genius And Madness! Men Imprison Them And Chain Them, Or Raise Statues To Them.
Men
Genius
Madness
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