At an early age I sucked up the milk of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato and Euripides, diluted with that of Moses and the prophets.
DENIS DIDEROTIt is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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Give, but, if possible, spare the poor man the shame of begging.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.
DENIS DIDEROT -
In 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 DIDEROT -
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
DENIS DIDEROT -
You have to make it happen.
DENIS DIDEROT -
What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it.
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 -
For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
DENIS DIDEROT -
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
DENIS DIDEROT -
I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.
DENIS DIDEROT -
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
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 -
The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre
DENIS DIDEROT -
A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.
DENIS DIDEROT -
If ever anybody dedicated his whole life to the “enthusiasm for truth and justice” using this phrase in the good sense it was Diderot.
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 -
If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.
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 -
A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROT -
It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.
DENIS DIDEROT -
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
DENIS DIDEROT