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 DIDEROTDisturbances 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.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
-
-
Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?
DENIS DIDEROT -
Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.
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 -
There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
DENIS DIDEROT -
I like better for one to say some foolish thing upon important matters than to be silent. That becomes the subject of discussion and dispute, and the truth is discovered.
DENIS DIDEROT -
How easy it is to tell tales!
DENIS DIDEROT -
Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
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