“The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.”

—  Denis Diderot

No. 16
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)

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Denis Diderot photo
Denis Diderot 106
French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist 1713–1784

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Context: I am speaking of the life of a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children; who has undertaken to cherish it and do it no damage, not because he is duty-bound, but because he loves the world and loves his children; whose work serves the earth he lives on and from and with, and is therefore pleasurable and meaningful and unending; whose rewards are not deferred until "retirement," but arrive daily and seasonally out of the details of the life of their place; whose goal is the continuance of the life of the world, which for a while animates and contains them, and which they know they can never compass with their understanding or desire.

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