Quotes By Denis Diderot

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

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.

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

There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.

Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.

You have to make it happen.

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

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

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.

No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.

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.

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

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

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

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

It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

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.

Good music is very close to primitive language.

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.

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

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

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

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.

Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.

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.

His hands would plait the priest's guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

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

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