Denis Diderot - Truth Quotes

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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.

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

Denis Diderot
The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future, the greater he will be, and all these philosophers and ministers and truth-telling men who have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in death? This: That prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O Posterity! Holy and sacred stay of the unhappy and the oppressed; thou who art just, thou who art incorruptible, thou who findest the good man, who unmaskest the hypocrite, who breakest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy consoling faith never, never abandon me!

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

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

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

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

Denis Diderot
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 skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.

Denis Diderot
Women swallow at one mouthful the lie that flatters, and drink drop by drop a truth that is bitter.

Denis Diderot