Quote

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

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
Aim
Make
Atheism
Good
Created
Disrupt
Always
Whose
Madmen
People
Dangerous
Fanaticism
Society
Fanatics
Religion
Occasion
Occasions
Use

More quotes by Denis Diderot

Image
I feel, I think, I judge therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.
Denis Diderot
Image
Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot
Image
Le public ne sait pas toujours de sirer le vrai. Thepublicdoesnot alwaysknowhow todesirethetruth.
Denis Diderot
Image
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
Image
Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?
Denis Diderot
Image
The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
Denis Diderot
Image
Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
Denis Diderot
Image
Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.
Denis Diderot
Image
My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.
Denis Diderot
Image
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
Denis Diderot
Image
If there are one hundred thousand damned souls for one saved soul, the devil has always the advantage without having given up his son to death.
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
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
Only the bad man is alone.
Denis Diderot
Image
We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
Denis Diderot
Image
He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
Denis Diderot
Image
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
Denis Diderot
Image
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.
Denis Diderot
Image
You can be sure that a painter reveals himself in his work as much as and more than a writer does in his.
Denis Diderot