Quote

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

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
Compounds
Define
Greatness
Weakness
Darkness
Strength
Indict
Light
Smallness
Men
Compound

More quotes by Denis Diderot

Image
Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.
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
Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.
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
Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
Denis Diderot
Image
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
Image
If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
Denis Diderot
Image
To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly.
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
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
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
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
Denis Diderot
Image
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
Denis Diderot
Image
How easy it is to tell tales!
Denis Diderot
Image
Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
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
But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!
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 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
Image
Tous les jours on couche avec des femmes qu'on n'aime pas, et l'on ne couche pas avec des femmes qu'on aime. Every day we sleep with women we do not love and don't sleep with the women we do love.
Denis Diderot