“The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.”

Observations on the Drawing Up of Laws (1774)

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Denis Diderot 106
French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist 1713–1784

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Context: It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight. It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight. Having had an insight, thought draws a conclusion from that insight. And then thought acts and thought is mechanical. So I have to find out whether having an insight into myself, which means into the world, and not drawing a conclusion from it is possible. If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol, which is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, from understanding things as they are.

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