Denis Diderot Quotes

Denis Diderot (58)

Birth:	5th October, 1713
Death:	31st July, 1784
Nationality:	French
Profession:	Critic, Philosopher, Writer

Related Authors

• George Henry Lewes
• Ted Hughes
• William Blum
• Esther Dyson
• Harvey Pekar
• Gene Shalit
• Cesare Pavese
• Irving Babbitt
• Andrew Lang
• Caroline Gordon

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 22nd May

Births

• 1914 - Vance Packard
• 1808 - Gerard De Nerval
• 1942 - Theodore Kaczynski
• 1914 - Sun Ra
• 1959 - Steven Morrissey

Deaths

• 1922 - Elizabeth David
• 1985 - Alister Hardy
• 1819 - Hugh Williamson
• 1849 - Maria Edgeworth
• 1983 - Albert Claude

• 

  Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

  Denis Diderot

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Last, Until, Never, Priest

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

  Denis Diderot

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ethics, Duty

• There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

  Denis Diderot

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Only, Passion

• You have to make it happen.

  Denis Diderot

• 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.

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

• 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.

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

• 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!

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

• There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge… observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

  Denis Diderot

• 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

• 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 aand to increase the population.

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot

• The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

  Denis Diderot

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

  Denis Diderot