Denis Diderot - Rameau's Nephew

13 Sourced 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
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
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.

Denis Diderot
What a hell of an economic system! Some are replete with everything while others, whose stomachs are no less demanding, whose hunger is just as recurrent, have nothing to bite on. The worst of it is the constrained posture need puts you in. The needy man does not walk like the rest; he skips, slithers, twists, crawls.

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

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

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
If your little savage were left to himself and to his native blindness, he would in time join the infant's reasoning to the grown man's passion—he would strangle his father and sleep with his mother.

Denis Diderot
Gratitude is a burden, and all burdens are made to be cast off.

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

Denis Diderot