Quotes By Denis Diderot

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

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

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.

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 good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

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

The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Good music is very close to primitive language.