Denis Diderot Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot Quotes & Sayings

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The first step towards philosophy is incredulity. — Denis Diderot

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism. — Denis Diderot

His hands would plait the priest's guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings. — Denis Diderot

The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action. — Denis Diderot

My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly. — Denis Diderot

First move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes. — Denis Diderot

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory. — Denis Diderot

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other. — Denis Diderot

Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to. — Denis Diderot

All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs. — Denis Diderot

People stop thinking when they cease to read. — Denis Diderot

A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced. — Denis Diderot

In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education. — Denis Diderot

It is raining bombs on the house of the Lord. I go in fear and trembling lest one of these terrible bombers gets into difficulties. — Denis Diderot

Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence. — Denis Diderot

In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he. — Denis Diderot

He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature. — Denis Diderot

There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father. — Denis Diderot

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go. — Denis Diderot

Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things. — Denis Diderot

The world is the house of the strong. — Denis Diderot

Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others — Denis Diderot

To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him. — Denis Diderot

Monsignor ... you are asking whether I promise God chastity, poverty, and obedience. I heard what you said and my answer is no — Denis Diderot

Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty. — Denis Diderot

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you've got to keep your feet warm. — Denis Diderot

Does anyone really know where they're going to? — Denis Diderot

Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high. — Denis Diderot

There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies. — Denis Diderot

First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can. — Denis Diderot

The best order of things, as I see it, is the one that includes me; to hell with the most perfect of worlds, if I'm not part of it. — Denis Diderot

Give, but, if possible, spare the poor man the shame of begging. — Denis Diderot

If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful. — Denis Diderot

If there are one hundred thousand damned souls for one saved soul, the devil has always the advantage without having given up his son to death. — Denis Diderot

Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey. — Denis Diderot

We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates. — Denis Diderot

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness. — Denis Diderot

If ever anybody dedicated his whole life to the "enthusiasm for truth and justice" using this phrase in the good sense it was Diderot. — Denis Diderot

Scepticism is the first step towards truth. — Denis Diderot

There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint. — Denis Diderot

Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice. — Denis Diderot

Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism. — Denis Diderot

Our truest opinions are not those we never change, but those to which we most often return. — Denis Diderot

I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it. — Denis Diderot

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it. — Denis Diderot

If a misplaced admiration shows imbecility, an affected criticism shows vice of character. Expose thyself rather to appear a beast than false. — Denis Diderot

La poe sie veutquelque chose d'e norme, debarbare et de sauvage. Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage. — Denis Diderot

Life is but a series of misunderstandings. — Denis Diderot

Good music is very close to primitive language. — Denis Diderot

When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the heartsof others. — Denis Diderot

The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers. — Denis Diderot

Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does. — Denis Diderot

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step. — Denis Diderot

All children are essentially criminal. — Denis Diderot

You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious. — Denis Diderot

There's a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness. — Denis Diderot

Time, matter, space - all, it may be, are no more than a point. — Denis Diderot

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable? — Denis Diderot

No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings. — Denis Diderot

Distance is a great promoter of admiration — Denis Diderot

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things. — Denis Diderot

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire. — Denis Diderot

The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre — Denis Diderot

Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues. — Denis Diderot

I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out. — Denis Diderot

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad. — Denis Diderot

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it. — Denis Diderot

One composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few. — Denis Diderot

My ideas are my whores. — Denis Diderot

There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death. — Denis Diderot

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world. — Denis Diderot

Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them. — Denis Diderot

It is better to reveal a weakness than allow oneself be suspected of a vice. — Denis Diderot

What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order. — Denis Diderot

The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me. — Denis Diderot

There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people. — Denis Diderot

Mind what you do; if you deceive me once I shall never believe you again. — Denis Diderot

The enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac. — Denis Diderot

There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself. — Denis Diderot

What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it. — Denis Diderot

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey. — Denis Diderot

Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective. — Denis Diderot

The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed. — Denis Diderot

You can be sure that a painter reveals himself in his work as much as and more than a writer does in his. — Denis Diderot

Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control. — Denis Diderot

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. — Denis Diderot

It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God. — Denis Diderot

I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity. — Denis Diderot

Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good? — Denis Diderot

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine. — Denis Diderot

Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. — Denis Diderot

If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him. — Denis Diderot

For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes. — Denis Diderot

Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices. — Denis Diderot

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth. — Denis Diderot

There is only one duty; that is to be happy. — Denis Diderot

The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned. — Denis Diderot

One swallows the lie that flatters, but sips the bitter truth drop by drop. — Denis Diderot

Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste. — Denis Diderot

There are cats and cats. — Denis Diderot