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 DIDEROTPeople praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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The 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.
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Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
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Isn’t it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
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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.
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One composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few.
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Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
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Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.
DENIS DIDEROT -
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
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There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
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All children are essentially criminal.
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You have to make it happen.
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We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.
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.
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Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
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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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Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
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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.
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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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The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
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No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
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The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
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How easy it is to tell tales!
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Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.
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Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.
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If a misplaced admiration shows imbecility, an affected criticism shows vice of character. Expose thyself rather to appear a beast than false.
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Does anyone really know where they’re going to?
DENIS DIDEROT