Denis Diderot Quotes & Sayings

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

If there are one hundred thousand damned souls for one saved soul, the devil has always the advantage without having given up his son to death. — Denis Diderot

To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity. — Denis Diderot

The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

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

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable? — Denis Diderot

It is better to reveal a weakness than allow oneself be suspected of a vice. — 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

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

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. — Denis Diderot

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions? — Denis Diderot

Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small- minded. — Denis Diderot

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

What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

Monsignor ... you are asking whether I promise God chastity, poverty, and obedience. I heard what you said and my answer is no — Denis Diderot

I discuss with myself questions of politics, love, taste, or philosophy. I let my mind rove wantonly, give it free rein to followany idea, wise or mad that may present itself ... My ideas are my harlots. — Denis Diderot

Our truest opinions are not those we never change, but those to which we most often return. — Denis Diderot

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

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

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. — Denis Diderot

One composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few. — Denis Diderot

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

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. — Denis Diderot

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

How easy it is to tell tales! — Denis Diderot

Tous les jours on couche avec des femmes qu'on n'aime pas, et l'on ne couche pas avec des femmes qu'on aime. Every day we sleep with women we do not love and don't sleep with the women we do love. — 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 scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone. — 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

The best order of things, as I see it, is the one that includes me; to hell with the most perfect of worlds, if I'm not part of it. — Denis Diderot

My ideas are my whores. — 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

Gentleness and peacefulness regulate our proceedings; theirs are dictated by fury. We employ reason, they accumulate faggots. They preach nothing but love, and breathe nothing but blood. Their words are humane, but their hearts are cruel. — Denis Diderot

Only the bad man is alone. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

En ge ne ral, plus un peuple est civilise , poli, moins ses moeurs sont poe tiques; tout s'affaiblit en s'adoucissant. Ingeneral, themore civilized and refinedthepeople, the less poetic are its morals; everything weakens as it mellows. — Denis Diderot

Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others — Denis Diderot

Il ne faut point donner d'esprit a' ses personnages; mais savoir les placer dans des circonstances qui leur en donnent. You should not give wit to your characters, but know instead how to put them in situations which will make them witty. — Denis Diderot

Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high. — Denis Diderot

All children are essentially criminal. — Denis Diderot

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

There is not a Musselman[Muslim] 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. — Denis Diderot

One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself. — Denis Diderot

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

The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum. — Denis Diderot

Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

Life is but a series of misunderstandings. — 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

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

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness. — Denis Diderot

The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

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? — Denis Diderot

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

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

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. — Denis Diderot

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

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

If there were a reason for preferring the Christian religion to natural religion, it would be because the former offers us, on the nature of God and man, enlightenment that the latter lacks. Now, this is not at all the case; for Christianity, instead of clarifying, gives rise to an infinite multitude of obscurities and difficulties. — Denis Diderot

For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes. — 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, dice box in hand, shaking the dice. — Denis Diderot

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

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

Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it. — Denis Diderot

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

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. — Denis Diderot

Nothing is duller than a progression of common chords. One wants some contrast, which breaks up the clear white light and makes it iridescent. — Denis Diderot

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

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

There is only one duty; that is to be happy. — Denis Diderot

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

But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious! — 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

It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism. — Denis Diderot

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

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

The enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

There comes a moment during which almost every girl or boy falls into melancholy; they are tormented by a vague inquietude which rests on everything and finds nothing to calm it. They seek solitude; they weep; the silence to be found in cloister attracts them: the image of peace that seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish. — Denis Diderot

The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual. — 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

When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz , one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner. — Denis Diderot

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. — Denis Diderot

Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man. — Denis Diderot

Superstition is more injurious to God than atheism. — Denis Diderot

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

The world is the house of the strong. — Denis Diderot

There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself. — Denis Diderot

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

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

Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. — Denis Diderot

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