Denis Diderot > Quotes

“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
― Denis Diderot

“From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.”
― Denis Diderot, Essai sur le mérite et la vertu

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.”
― Denis Diderot

“[L]e philosophe n'a jamais tué de prêtres et le prêtre a tué beaucoup de philosophes...

(The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.)”
― Denis Diderot, Political Writings

“We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.”
― Denis Diderot

“Scepticism is the first step towards truth.”
― Denis Diderot, Pensées philosophiques

“Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others”
― Denis Diderot

“A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.”
― Denis Diderot

“Life is but a series of misunderstandings.”
― Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist

“For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.”
― Denis Diderot, Le Neveu de Rameau

“Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.”
― Denis Diderot

“Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.”
― Denis Diderot

“Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.”
― Denis Diderot

“I am wholly yours - you are everything to me; we will sustain each other in all the ills of life it may please fate to inflict upon us; you will soothe my troubles; I will comfort you in yours.”
― Denis Diderot

“As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.”
― Denis Diderot, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences des arts et des métiers: textes choisis

“There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.”
― Denis Diderot

“Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.”
― Denis Diderot

“What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.”
― Denis Diderot

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.”
― Denis Diderot

“People stop thinking when they cease to read.”
― Denis Diderot

“The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me.”
― Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist

“The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.”
― Diderot

“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”
― Denis Diderot

“حقیقی‌ترین تاریخ پر از اباطیل است و تخیلی‌ترین رمان پر از حقایق”
― Denis Diderot

“If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.”
― Denis Diderot

“The best order of things, as I see it, is the one that includes me; to hell with the most perfect of worlds, if I'm not part of it.”
― Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew / D'Alembert's Dream

“One swallows the lie that flatters, but sips the bitter truth drop by drop.”
― Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew / D'Alembert's Dream

“It is better to reveal a weakness than allow oneself be suspected of a vice.”
― Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist

“The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and ... people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.”
― Denis Diderot

“It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God.”
― Denis Diderot