Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.
DENIS DIDEROTOnly God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
More Denis Diderot Quotes
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One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.
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 -
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
DENIS DIDEROT -
There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.
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 -
There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.
DENIS DIDEROT -
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 -
Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
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 -
People 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.
DENIS DIDEROT -
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
DENIS DIDEROT -
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
DENIS DIDEROT -
I feel, I think, I judge; therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.
DENIS DIDEROT