Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROTOne composition is meagre, though it has many figures; another is rich, though it has few.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.
DENIS DIDEROT -
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 -
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 -
There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
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The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
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Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.
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 -
No 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 DIDEROT -
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 DIDEROT -
Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
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Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
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 -
Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.
DENIS DIDEROT -
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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What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it.
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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 DIDEROT -
To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.
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 -
The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
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Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
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Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
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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