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Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.
Denis Diderot
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Denis Diderot
Age: 70 †
Born: 1713
Born: October 5
Died: 1784
Died: July 31
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Art Critic
Art Theorist
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Diderot
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More quotes by Denis Diderot
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
Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.
Denis Diderot
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
The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
Denis Diderot
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
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
Denis Diderot
No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
Denis Diderot
What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.
Denis Diderot
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
He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature.
Denis Diderot
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
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
There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.
Denis Diderot
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
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
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
Denis Diderot
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.
Denis Diderot
Le public ne sait pas toujours de sirer le vrai. Thepublicdoesnot alwaysknowhow todesirethetruth.
Denis Diderot
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
Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
Denis Diderot