Vulgar words in Diderot and the Encyclopædists - Volume II. (Page 1)

This book at a glance

ass x 1
blockhead x 3
buffoon x 1
hussy x 1
jackass x 1
            

Page 1

~   ~   ~   Sentence 707   ~   ~   ~

He remarks incidentally that the condition of the bad painter and the bad actor is worse than that of the bad man of letters: the painter hears with his own ears the expressions of contempt for his talent, and the hisses of the audience go straight to the ears of the actor, whereas the author has the comfort of going to his grave without a suspicion that you have cried out at every page: "_The fool, the animal, the jackass!_" and have at length flung his book into a corner.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,778   ~   ~   ~

There is nobody, in whom passion, interest, education, and favourable chance, could not have surmounted all the obstacles of an unpromising nature; and there is no great man who, in the absence of passion, interest, education, and certain chances, would not have been a blockhead, in spite of his happier organisation.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,285   ~   ~   ~

If he had only lived five years longer, he would have seen the great church of Notre Dame solemnly consecrated by legislative decree to the worship of Reason, bishops publicly trampling on crosier and ring amid universal applause, and vast crowds exulting in processions whose hero was an ass crowned with a mitre.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,334   ~   ~   ~

By his contempt for a bad law did he any the less encourage blockheads to despise good ones?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,469   ~   ~   ~

Yet to go and humiliate one's self before a hussy, cry for mercy at the feet of a little actress with the hisses of the pit for ever in her ears!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,729   ~   ~   ~

I will have in my pay the whole troop of flatterers, parasites, and buffoons, and I'll say to them, as has been said to me: "Come, knaves, let me be amused," and amused I shall be; "Pull me some honest folk to pieces," and so they will be, if honest folk can be found.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,101   ~   ~   ~

I was a blockhead, a fool, a rascal; I was not good for a single thing; I was not worth the glass of water which they gave me to drink.

Page 1