I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.
DENIS DIDEROTWe swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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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 -
There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.
DENIS DIDEROT -
All children are essentially criminal.
DENIS DIDEROT -
If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Good music is very close to primitive language.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
DENIS DIDEROT -
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
DENIS DIDEROT -
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 man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
DENIS DIDEROT -
When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
DENIS DIDEROT -
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
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 -
Two qualities essential for the artist: moralityand perspective.
DENIS DIDEROT -
If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.
DENIS DIDEROT -
Distance is a great promoter of admiration.
DENIS DIDEROT -
First move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes.
DENIS DIDEROT -
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
DENIS DIDEROT -
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 -
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
DENIS DIDEROT -
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
DENIS DIDEROT