Quotes by Denis Diderot

“How had they met? By chance, like everybody else. What were there names? What's it to you? Where were they coming from? From the nearest place. Where were they going? Does anyone really know where ...”

“Scepticism is the first step towards truth.”

“One swallows the lie that flatters, but sips the bitter truth drop by drop.”

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.”

“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.”

“Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.”

“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”

“If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.”

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a fu...”

“I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of l...”

“People stop thinking when they cease to read.”

“Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.”

“Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.”

“There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the ...”

“It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.”

“When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live...”

“There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.”

“Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.”

“The best doctor is the one you run to and can't find.”