Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that a simple idea or object can challenge and disrupt established beliefs and institutions.
Denis Diderot's quote highlights the power of questioning and the potential for even the smallest things to challenge grand religious and philosophical constructs. The mention of an egg symbolizes new beginnings and the fragility of outdated beliefs, suggesting that radical change can be initiated by something seemingly insignificant.
In practice
During a discussion on religion, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for critical thinking.
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
This root [the potato], no matter how much you prepare it, is tasteless and floury. It cannot pass for an agreeable food, but it supplies a food sufficiently abundant and sufficiently healthy for men who ask only to sustain themselves. The potato is criticized with reason for being windy, but what matters windiness for the vigorous organisms of peasants and laborers?
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.
There was a hysteria in there, certainly, but there was also the exhaustion of someone who had managed, somehow, to believe several dozen impossible things in the last twenty-four hours, without ever getting a proper breakfast.
What is the knocking? What is the knocking at the door in the night? It is somebody who wants to do us harm. No, no, it is the three strange angels. Admit them, admit them.
My libertarian beliefs have not always served me well. Like most people who hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my beliefs trump the scientific facts.
I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously.
I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don't believe in happy endings is because I don't believe in endings.
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