Those authors into whose hands nature has placed a magic wand, with which they no sooner touch us than we forget the unhappiness in life, than the darkness leaves our soul, and we are reconciled to existence, should be placed among the benefactors of the human race.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) French editor, philosopher

(Attributed)

Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou, Treasury of Thought (1884 ed.).