Quotes By Denis Diderot

There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.

Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!

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

All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.

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.

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.

The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.

We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.

Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.

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

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

One declaims endlessly against the passions; one imputes all of man's suffering to them. One forgets that they are also the source of all his pleasures.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.

Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.

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

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