Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
Interpretation
Violent power is illegitimate and unstable, reliant on force rather than true authority.
Denis Diderot's quote emphasizes that power gained through violence is not legitimate; it is merely a seizure of control that can easily crumble when the coercive force is diminished. True authority is built on consent and the willingness of others to follow rather than through intimidation or fear.
In practice
In a speech on leadership, you might quote Diderot to emphasize the importance of ethical governance.
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.
Cyborg writing must not be about the Fall, the imagination of a once-upon-a-time wholeness before language, before writing, before Man. Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other...
People talk of the pathos and failure of plain women; but it is a more terrible thing that a beautiful woman may succeed in everything but womanhood.
Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of mankind
Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?
God's law is our pleasure when the God of the law is our God.
No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them.
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