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Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?
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
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Encyclopédistes
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Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lumières
Diderot
Race
Enlighten
Greater
Fatherland
Human
Enlightening
Humans
Merit
Save
Atheism
Remains
Forever
Perishable
More quotes by Denis Diderot
Only the bad man is alone.
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
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
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
A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.
Denis Diderot
Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.
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
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.
Denis Diderot
There is only one virtue, justice only one duty, to be happy only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.
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
The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
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
En ge ne ral, plus un peuple est civilise , poli, moins ses moeurs sont poe tiques tout s'affaiblit en s'adoucissant. Ingeneral, themore civilized and refinedthepeople, the less poetic are its morals everything weakens as it mellows.
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
Time, matter, space - all, it may be, are no more than a point.
Denis Diderot
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
Denis Diderot
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
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
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