Denis Diderot Quotes

I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.

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.

If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

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.

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.

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.

The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.

The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.

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.

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.

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

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.

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.

I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.

The following general definition of an animal: a system of different organic molecules that have combined with one another, under the impulsion of a sensation similar to an obtuse and muffled sense of touch given to them by the creator of matter as a whole, until each one of them has found the most suitable position for its shape and comfort.

Distance is a great promoter of admiration

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

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

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

The best doctor is the one you run to and can't find.

The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.

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

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.