Words matter. These are the best Denis Diderot Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Every man has his dignity. I’m willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one’s innocence with the loss of one’s prejudices.
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.
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
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.
Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.
Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
Good music is very close to primitive language.
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
His hands would plait the priest’s guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.
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.
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
There are things I can’t force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
You have to make it happen.
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.
The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
