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 DIDEROTOnly 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 DIDEROTThere is only one duty; that is to be happy.
DENIS DIDEROTThere are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.
DENIS DIDEROTThe decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.
DENIS DIDEROTThere’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
DENIS DIDEROTThe God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
DENIS DIDEROTThe 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.
DENIS DIDEROTPosterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
DENIS DIDEROTShakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.
DENIS DIDEROTIf there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.
DENIS DIDEROTNo man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
DENIS DIDEROTTo prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.
DENIS DIDEROTThe Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
DENIS DIDEROTThe enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac.
DENIS DIDEROTThe best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
DENIS DIDEROTI am wholly yours – you are everything to me; we will sustain each other in all the ills of life it may please fate to inflict upon us; you will soothe my troubles; I will comfort you in yours.
DENIS DIDEROT