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 DIDEROTThe infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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There 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 DIDEROT -
The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
DENIS DIDEROT -
How easy it is to tell tales!
DENIS DIDEROT -
Give, but, if possible, spare the poor man the shame of begging.
DENIS DIDEROT -
We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man’s afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.
DENIS DIDEROT -
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
DENIS DIDEROT -
For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The world is the house of the strong.
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 -
Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.
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 -
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 -
Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
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He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
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And his hands would plait the priest’s entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings.
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Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.
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Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is perishable?
DENIS DIDEROT -
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
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To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.
DENIS DIDEROT -
You can be sure that a painter reveals himself in his work as much as and more than a writer does in his.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.
DENIS DIDEROT