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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
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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
Astray
Guides
Instinct
Intelligence
Pure
Animal
Reason
Better
More quotes by Denis Diderot
Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
Denis Diderot
We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.
Denis Diderot
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
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
Denis Diderot
The world is the house of the strong.
Denis Diderot
If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.
Denis Diderot
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
Denis Diderot
If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.
Denis Diderot
Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.
Denis Diderot
A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.
Denis Diderot
The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
Denis Diderot
Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.
Denis Diderot
I feel, I think, I judge therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.
Denis Diderot
Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
Denis Diderot
In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.
Denis Diderot
The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre
Denis Diderot
When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz , one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.
Denis Diderot
Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?
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
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
Denis Diderot