Quote

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

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
Respect
Sublime
Great
Realm
Kind
Criminal
Realms
Thief
Criminals
Spit
Essential
Wickedness
Deny
Thieves
Essentials
Petty

More quotes by 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
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
Denis Diderot
Image
The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
Denis Diderot
Image
Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.
Denis Diderot
Image
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
Denis Diderot
Image
Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.
Denis Diderot
Image
There are cats and cats.
Denis Diderot
Image
One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself.
Denis Diderot
Image
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
Denis Diderot
Image
To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.
Denis Diderot
Image
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
Image
First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart make me tremble, weep, shudder outrage me delight my eyes afterwards if you can.
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
We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
Denis Diderot
Image
The world is the house of the strong.
Denis Diderot
Image
If there were a reason for preferring the Christian religion to natural religion, it would be because the former offers us, on the nature of God and man, enlightenment that the latter lacks. Now, this is not at all the case for Christianity, instead of clarifying, gives rise to an infinite multitude of obscurities and difficulties.
Denis Diderot
Image
It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,--who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,--who can work upon others at his pleasure.
Denis Diderot
Image
Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
Denis Diderot
Image
What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
Denis Diderot
Image
The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
Denis Diderot