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

—  Denis Diderot

Observations on the Drawing Up of Laws (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 general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action." by Denis Diderot?
Denis Diderot photo
Denis Diderot106
French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist 1713–1784

Related quotes

Pierre Louis Maupertuis photo

“The quantity of action is the product of the mass of the bodies times their speed and the distance they travel. When a body is transported from one place to another, the action is proportional to the mass of the body, to its speed and to the distance over which it is transported.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique (1746)

“Since the genius of the American system is maintaining the eagle in the balanced center of the spectrum, the Founders warned against a number of temptations which might lure subsequent generations to abandon their freedoms and their rights by subjecting themselves to a strong federal administration operating on the collectivist Left. They warned against the "welfare state" where the government endeavors to take care of everyone from the cradle to the grave.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“That books do not take the place of experience, and that learning is no substitute for genius, are two kindred phenomena; their common ground is that the abstract can never take the place of the perceptive.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book The World as Will and Representation

E. Payne, trans., Vol. II, Ch. 7, p. 74
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Bertolt Brecht photo

“We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.”

Bertolt Brecht A Short Organum for the Theatre

¶ 35
A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)

Lawrence Lessig photo

“When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

Keynote address at the "One Planet, One Net" symposium sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (10 October 1998)

Otto Weininger photo

“If man were not free, then he could not conceive of causality at all, and could not form any concept of it. Insight into lawfulness is already freedom from it.”

Otto Weininger (1880–1903) austrian philosopher and writer

Collected Aphorisms

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“Moksha' is not `Freedom from Action' but, `Freedom in Action.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Milton Friedman photo

“The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 10 “The Tide Is Turning”, p. 314

Anne Lamott photo

“You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

On Mind and Thought (1993), p. 34
Posthumous publications
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.

Related topics