What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
Interpretation
A monster is defined as something that cannot coexist within the current societal structures.
Denis Diderot's quote reflects on the nature of monsters as beings that challenge or disrupt the established norms and order of society. This could apply to individuals or ideas that are seen as threats because they do not conform to the accepted ways of living or believing, ultimately leading to conflict between the entity and its environment.
In practice
In a debate about societal norms, one might reference this quote to illustrate how individuals or ideas that challenge the status quo are often labeled as 'monsters'.
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.
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?
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
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.
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
If the spiritual universe and the way to it were shown, No one would remain in this world for a single moment.
How could I share with you how I felt when two towers that I loved, two pieces of steel and glass and concrete fell down, when actually they took with them thousands of human lives? That is the actual tragedy. But those towers were almost human for me. I was in love with them, and that's why I married them with a tight rope.
The subway in New York is a great social experiment; there are so many races and ways of life sitting together on each car.
Being willing to donate the taxpayers' money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.
Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, ManwΓ« and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.
I am marooned on a Crag of Superiority in an ocean of soldiers.
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