We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
Interpretation
People often accept comforting lies easily, while they struggle to confront uncomfortable truths.
This quote highlights the tendency of human beings to embrace flattering lies over difficult truths. Diderot suggests that while we quickly accept what makes us feel good, we approach reality cautiously and reluctantly, often savoring the bitter taste of truthβa reminder of the complexities of our understanding and acceptance of reality.
In practice
In a motivational speech about facing reality, remind your audience of Diderot's insight.
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?
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
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.
Stunned and still not suffering. Swollen with care and anxiety and still not suffering. Useless, old and full of grief, but still not suffering.
A person who is wise does nothing against their will, nothing with sighing or under coercion.
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
Meditation means getting out of the mind, looking at the mind from the outside. That`s exactly the meaning of the word `ecstasy`: to stand out. To stand out of the mind makes you ecstatic, brings bliss to you. And great intelligence is released. When you are identified with the mind you cannot be very intelligent because you become identified with an instrument, you become confined by the instrument and its limitations. And you are unlimited - you are consciousness.
One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.
Hope is a very unruly emotion.
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