black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

Denis Diderot

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
DENIS DIDEROT

God Novel Rare
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

Anand Thakur
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
DENIS DIDEROT

Oneself Path Step
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
DENIS DIDEROT

Convenience Moral Perception
The man who first pronounced the barbarous word God ought to have been immediately destroyed.
DENIS DIDEROT

Destroy Man Pronounce
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 DIDEROT

Greatness Mindset Moral Passion Raise Small Soul
It is raining bombs on the house of the Lord. I go in fear and trembling lest one of these terrible bombers gets into difficulties.
DENIS DIDEROT

Difficult God Home Raining
How easy it is to tell tales!
DENIS DIDEROT

Easy Story
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

Age Early Milk Myself
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

Death Fear Happiness Justice Virtue
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
DENIS DIDEROT

See Theory World
Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.
DENIS DIDEROT

Genius Madness Raise Status
Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evil Goodness High Master Writing
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
DENIS DIDEROT

Poetry Vast Wild
Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.
DENIS DIDEROT

Evidence Integrity Virtue
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

Allow Music Painting Performance Poetry Superstitious
Good music is very close to primitive language.
DENIS DIDEROT

Goodness Language Music Primitive
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

Fine Himself Live Man Peace Possession Purity Religious
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
DENIS DIDEROT

Desire Fact Production True Willing
Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
DENIS DIDEROT

Anand Thakur
There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
DENIS DIDEROT

Happiness Oneself Passion
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

Adjust Change Force Need Point View
If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
DENIS DIDEROT

Beautiful Color Disturb Rainbow

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Denis Diderot Quotes