Denis Diderot Quotes
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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.
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On doit exiger de moi que je cherche la vérité, mais non que je la trouve.
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The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
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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.
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The best doctor is the one you run to and can't find.
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Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
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Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
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In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
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Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.
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There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
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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.
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We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
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How old the world is! I walk between two eternities... What is my fleeting existence in comparison with that decaying rock, that valley digging its channel ever deeper, that forest that is tottering and those great masses above my head about to fall? I see the marble of tombs crumbling into dust; and yet I don’t want to die!
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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
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Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
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The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
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Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
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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.
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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.
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There is not a Musselman alive who would not imagine that he was performing an action pleasing to God and his Holy Prophet by exterminating every Christian on earth, while the Christians are scarcely more tolerant on their side.
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When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years.
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Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
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The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
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Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.