There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.
DENIS DIDEROTThere is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.
DENIS DIDEROTWe swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
DENIS DIDEROTThere is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.
DENIS DIDEROTIn any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.
DENIS DIDEROTAlthough a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.
DENIS DIDEROTJustice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROTPoetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
DENIS DIDEROTThe best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
DENIS DIDEROTOne composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few.
DENIS DIDEROTThe best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
DENIS DIDEROTThere are three principal means of acquiring knowledge, observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
DENIS DIDEROTWhen 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 DIDEROTScepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROTThe 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 DIDEROTAre 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 DIDEROTWhat is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
DENIS DIDEROT