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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

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
DENIS DIDEROT

Machine Order Ordinary Quality
There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
DENIS DIDEROT

Happiness Oneself Passion
Anyone who takes it upon himself, on his private authority, to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.
DENIS DIDEROT

Authority Break Goodness Oneself Privacy
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

Bad Company Innocent Instruction Loss One Prejudice
Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
DENIS DIDEROT

Philosophy Road
The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.
DENIS DIDEROT

Destroy Man Pronounce
It is raining bombs on the house of the Lord. I go in fear and trembling lest one of these terrible bombers gets into difficulties.
DENIS DIDEROT

Difficult God Home Raining
It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.
DENIS DIDEROT

Love Rob
The world is the house of the strong.
DENIS DIDEROT

Hard Time Inspirational Strong World
Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evil Genius World
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

Dedication Enthusiasm Goodness Life Sense
First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.
DENIS DIDEROT

Delight Move Surprise Yourself
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Expectation Finding Myself Truth
Only the bad man is alone.
DENIS DIDEROT

Alone Bad Man
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

Creative Experiment Genius Nature Observation
The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
DENIS DIDEROT

Adult Eyes Infant Man Old

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Denis Diderot Quotes