“The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and … people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.”

—  Denis Diderot

Conversations with a Christian Lady (1774)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and … people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how t…" by Denis Diderot?
Denis Diderot photo
Denis Diderot106
French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist 1713–1784

Related quotes

Thomas Paine photo

“It is of the utmost danger to society to make it (religion) a party in political disputes.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Life and experience. If one notices how some individuals know how to treat their experiences (their insignificant everyday experiences) so that these become a plot of ground that bears fruit three times a year; while others (and how many of them!) are driven through the waves of the most exciting turns of fate, of the most varied currents of their time or nation, and yet always stay lightly on the surface, like cork: then one is finally tempted to divide mankind into a minority (minimality) of those people who know how to make much out of little and a majority of those who know how to make a little out of much; indeed, one meets those perverse wizards who, instead of creating the world out of nothing, create nothing out of the world.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 627
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

“A people, entering into society, surrender such a part of their natural rights, as shall be necessary for the existence of that society. They are so precious in themselves, that they would never be parted with, did not the preservation of the remainder require it. They are entrusted in the hands of those, who are very willing to receive them, who are naturally fond of exercising of them, and whose passions are always striving to make a bad use of them.

They are conveyed by a written compact, expressing those which are given up, and the mode in which those reserved shall be secured.”

John DeWitt

On the need for a Bill of Rights, Antifederalist Papers http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?subcategory=73 John DeWitt II http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1684 (1787) <br class="br">Attributed

Margaret Thatcher photo

“It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 104

Edwidge Danticat photo

“Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously…. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.”

Edwidge Danticat (1969) Novelist, short story writer, memoirist

Claire Danes photo

“Anybody who knows how to make a good movie, knows that it's a collaborative undertaking. To deny that its really dangerous.”

Claire Danes (1979) American actress

"Interview: Steve Martin and Claire Danes" by Jeff Otto at IGN.com (19 October 2005)

Thom Yorke photo

“They're dangerous people, and what's really frightening is that they don't know it, they don't see themselves as dangerous… they see the danger elsewhere. The danger is always elsewhere. How convenient.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

source http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_7P8Hlxl8&amp;feature=related

Joseph Conrad photo

“The imbecile bourgeoisie of this country make themselves the accomplices of the very people whose aim is to drive them out of their houses to starve in ditches. And they have the political power still, if they only had the sense to use it for their preservation.”

Joseph Conrad book The Secret Agent

Source: The Secret Agent (1907), Ch. 2

Richard Rohr photo

“Religion has not tended to create seekers or searchers, has not tended to create honest, humble people who trust that God is always beyond them. We aren’t focused on the great mystery. Religion has, rather, tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick, easy, glib answers. That’s why so much of the West is understandably abandoning religion. People know the great mystery cannot be that simple and facile.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 33

Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“Crete doesn't need householders, she needs madmen like us. These madmen make Crete immortal.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Freedom and Death (1956)
Context: We, who are dying, are doing better, than they, who will live. For Crete doesn't need householders, she needs madmen like us. These madmen make Crete immortal.

Related topics