Quote

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

Denis Diderot

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
Abbé
Art Critic
Art Theorist
Correspondent
Encyclopédistes
Essayist
Historian
Lexicographer
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lumières
Diderot
Men
Machine
Machines
Ordinary
Genius
Quality
Literature
Presupposes
Happiness
Gaiety
Always
Disorder

More quotes by Denis Diderot

Image
The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.
Denis Diderot
Image
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
Denis Diderot
Image
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot
Image
La poe sie veutquelque chose d'e norme, debarbare et de sauvage. Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.
Denis Diderot
Image
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
Denis Diderot
Image
Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
Denis Diderot
Image
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
Denis Diderot
Image
The world is the house of the strong.
Denis Diderot
Image
How easy it is to tell tales!
Denis Diderot
Image
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
Denis Diderot
Image
Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
Denis Diderot
Image
At an early age I sucked up the milk of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato and Euripides, diluted with that of Moses and the prophets.
Denis Diderot
Image
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
Image
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
Denis Diderot
Image
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
Denis Diderot
Image
There are cats and cats.
Denis Diderot
Image
A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
Denis Diderot
Image
The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me.
Denis Diderot
Image
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.
Denis Diderot
Image
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.
Denis Diderot