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.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that while minor wrongdoings are disdainful, there is a certain respect that can be given to those who commit grander acts of wickedness.
Denis Diderot reflects on the nature of wickedness, proposing that while society tends to scorn small-time criminals, there exists a fascination or even a form of respect for those who engage in more significant, audacious crimes. This distinction raises questions about morality, ethics, and the complexity of human behavior, highlighting how society’s judgments can vary based on the magnitude of wrongdoing.
In practice
In a literary analysis of Diderot's work, this quote could be used to explore themes of morality and respect.
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.
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point out that perhaps ALL thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation give evidence that we are not dealing with logic but with faith.
The use of "religion" as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time.
Hollywood is difficult to navigate if you have integrity, so I opted not to work if there wasn't enough to do in a role, which doesn't have to do with the role's size.
We all know people who have been made much meaner and more irritable and more intolerable to live with by suffering: it is not right to say that all suffering perfects. It only perfects one type of person ...... the one who accepts the call of God in Christ Jesus.
The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
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