Quote

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

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
Skepticism
First
Proved
Thing
Step
Toward
Steps
Truth
Ever
Questioned
Firsts

More quotes by 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
Good music is very close to primitive language.
Denis Diderot
Image
Scepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot
Image
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
Denis Diderot
Image
Le public ne sait pas toujours de sirer le vrai. Thepublicdoesnot alwaysknowhow todesirethetruth.
Denis Diderot
Image
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
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
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
Image
There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.
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
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
Denis Diderot
Image
Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.
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
Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.
Denis Diderot
Image
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
Denis Diderot
Image
If the weather is too cold or rainy, I take shelter in the Regence Cafe, where I entertain myself by watching chess being played. Paris is the world center, and this cafe is the Paris centre for the finest skill at this game.
Denis Diderot
Image
The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dice box in hand, shaking the dice.
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
Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence they have relegated him to a sanctuary the walls of the temple restrict his view he does not exist outside of it.
Denis Diderot
Image
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.
Denis Diderot