The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.
DENIS DIDEROTIsn’t it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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Anyone who takes it upon himself, on his private authority, to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.
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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.
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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 -
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.
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The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
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There are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.
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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.
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It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.
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Good music is very close to primitive language.
DENIS DIDEROT -
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
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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 -
There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
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 -
Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?
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He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
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For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.
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It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
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All children are essentially criminal.
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We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Isn’t it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
DENIS DIDEROT -
One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There are cats and cats.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is only one duty; that is to be happy.
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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