Denis Diderot Quotations

Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.

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

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

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

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.

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

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

The best doctor is the one you run to and can't find.

To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!

The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.

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

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.

Good music is very close to primitive language.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.

The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.

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

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

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

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

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

Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.

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

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

It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.

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

Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

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

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

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

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

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

We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

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

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

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

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

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

One declaims endlessly against the passions; one imputes all of man's suffering to them. One forgets that they are also the source of all his pleasures.

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

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

Sentences are like sharp nails, which force truth upon our memories.

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings... We must run roughshod over all these ancient puerilities, overturn the barriers that reason never erected, give back to the arts and sciences the liberty that is so precious to them.

I like better for one to say some foolish thing upon important matters than to be silent. That becomes the subject of discussion and dispute, and the truth is discovered.

All children are essentially criminal.

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

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

I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.

Only the bad man is alone.

You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.

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

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

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.

Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.

Une danse est un poe' me. A dance is a poem.

As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

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?

Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' This stranger is a theologian.

Scepticism is the first step towards truth.

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

To be born in imbecility, in the midst of pain and crisis; to be the plaything of ignorance, error, need, sickness, wickedness, and passions; to return step by step to imbecility, from the time of lisping to that of doting; to live among knaves and charlatans of all kinds; to die between one man who takes your pulse and another who troubles your head; never to know where you come from, why you come and where you are going! That is what is called the most important gift of our parents and nature. Life.

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

We are a free people; and now you have planted in our country the title deeds of our future slavery. You are neither god nor demon; who are you, then, to make slaves? Orou! You understand the language of these men, tell us all, as you have told me, what they have written on this sheet of metal: This country is ours. This country yours? And why? Because you have walked thereon? If a Tahitian landed one day on your shores, and scratched on one of your rocks or on the bark of your trees: This country belongs to the people of Tahiti - what would you think?

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.

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

You have to make it happen.

The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations...He does not confuse truth with plausibility...he takes for truth what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable...The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy.

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

A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.

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

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.

The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dice box in hand, shaking the dice.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

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

For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.

We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.

If the weather is too cold or rainy, I take shelter in the Regence Cafe, where I entertain myself by watching chess being played. Paris is the world center, and this cafe is the Paris centre for the finest skill at this game.

Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.

When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them.

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I feel, I think, I judge; therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.

If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.

Distance is a great promoter of admiration

It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,--who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,--who can work upon others at his pleasure.

Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.

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.

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