A Quote by Denis Diderot

It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it. — © Denis Diderot
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
Let's give the conventions back to the politicians. If we think there's any news, we can tack it on afterward as commentary. But the conventions should be their show, not ours.
Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism - it is in human nature.
The nature of men and women - their essential nature - is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you.
You don't want to move toward some utopian literary situation where everybody's free of all conventions. That's ridiculous! Conventions are what you need. You have nothing to break down if you don't have conventions.
Charity and good-nature give a sanction to the most common actions; and pride and ill-nature make our best virtues despicable.
The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
I'm always amazed that people are shocked when their despicable action causes an equally despicable reaction.
Facts are God's arguments; we should be careful never to misunderstand or pervert them.
I love sex.... It should be animalistic, it should be sadistic, it should at times be masochistic.... There are few rules and moral conventions.
The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.
There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.
Every government has signed up to a voluntary legal commitment under at least one of the international covenants and conventions based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But who is holding them to account? Our mission is to make it known that these conventions are good tools for civil society to hold their local authority, their government and businesses accountable.
The dis-incumbenced stance is the one people should cultivate, we are told, once they recognize that there is no world beyond the human world. They will, indeed must, have their beliefs and values, but they will recognize that these 'lean upon' - and are answerable to - nothing other than human commitments and purposes. The only fidelity, Rorty remarked, can be to our own conventions.
Nature doesn't need people - people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human culture, human beings, cannot survive without nature.
The United States of course wants to follow the highest standards of conduct with regard to enemy combatants who follow the rules of war. It should and does follow the Geneva Conventions scrupulously when fighting the armed forces of other nations that have signed the Geneva Conventions or follow their principles.
I'm not a human being. I'm despicable and disgusting - but that's where the money is.
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