Denis Diderot Quotes

111 Sourced Quotes

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

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
What is this world of ours? A complex entity subject to sudden changes which all indicate a tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings which follow one another, assert themselves and disappear; a fleeting symmetry; a momentary order.

Denis Diderot
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.

Denis Diderot
To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.

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

Denis Diderot
One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.

Denis Diderot
I am beginning to feel that I am growing old; soon, I shall have to eat mush like children. I shall no longer be able to speak, which will be a rather great advantage for others and but a small inconvenience for myself.... The time in which I count in years is gone; that in which I count in days is here.... I had thought that the fibers of the heart would grow callous with age, it's not at all the case. I am not sure that my sensitivity hasn't increased; everything moves me, affects me.... To fade out between a man feeling your pulse and another bothering your head; not to know where one comes from, why one came, where one is going...

Denis Diderot
If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed; extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare.

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
I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.

Denis Diderot
Impenetrable in their dissimulation, cruel in their vengeance, tenacious in their purposes, unscrupulous as to their methods, animated by profound and hidden hatred for the tyranny of man — it is as though there exists among them an ever-present conspiracy toward domination, a sort of alliance like that subsisting among the priests of every country.

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

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
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
I let my mind rove wantonly, give it free rein to follow any idea, wise or mad, that may present itself.... My ideas are my harlots.

Denis Diderot
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.

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 following general definition of an animal: a system of different organic molecules that have combined with one another, under the impulsion of a sensation similar to an obtuse and muffled sense of touch given to them by the creator of matter as a whole, until each one of them has found the most suitable position for it shape and comfort.

Denis Diderot
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.

Denis Diderot
I believe in God, although I live very happily with atheists... It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God.

Denis Diderot
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.

Denis Diderot
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, dicebox in hand, shaking the dice.

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
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.

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

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
There are two sorts of laws, those of absolute equity and universality, and the bizarre ones which owe their autonomy only to blindness or to the force of circumstance. The latter merely cover the man who is breaking them with a passing disgrace, which time then transfers to the judges and the nations, on whom it remains forever.

Denis Diderot
One gulps down the flattering lie and sips the bitter truth.

Denis Diderot
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.

Denis Diderot