Denis Diderot quotes - page 5

How did they meet? By chance, like everybody ... Where did they come from? From the nearest place. Where were they going? Do we know where we are going? (Denis Diderot)
This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together solely by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will. View quote
Denis Diderot
We do not know nature; causes hidden in her breast might have produced everything. In your turn, observe the polyp of Trembley: does it not contain in itself the causes which bring about regeneration? Why then would it be absurd to think that there are physical causes by reason of which everything has been made, and to which the whole chain of this vast universe is so necessarily bound and held that, nothing which happens, could have failed to happen,-causes, of which we are so invincibly ignorant that we have had recourse to a God, who, as some aver, is not so much as a logical entity? Thus to destroy chance is not to prove the existence of a supreme being, since there may be some other thing which is neither chance nor God-I mean, nature. It follows that the study of nature can make only unbelievers; and the way of thinking of all its more successful investigators proves this. View quote
Denis Diderot
Spirit of the staircase" or "Staircase inspiration. View quote
Denis Diderot
The first step towards philosophy is incredulity. View quote
Denis Diderot
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 for thousands of years. View quote
Denis Diderot
I believe in God, although I live very happily with atheists... It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God. View quote
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. View quote
Denis Diderot
Women swallow at one mouthful the lie that flatters, and drink drop by drop the truth that is bitter. View quote
Denis Diderot
My ideas are my whores. View quote
Denis Diderot
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it. (Denis Diderot)
A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence scepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone. View quote
Denis Diderot
How old the world is! I walk between two eternities.... What is my fleeting existence in comparison with that decaying rock, that valley digging its channel ever deeper, that forest that is tottering and those great masses above my head about to fall? I see the marble of tombs crumbling into dust; and yet I don't want to die! View quote
Denis Diderot
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. View quote
Denis Diderot
How old the world is! I walk between two eternities... View quote
Denis Diderot
The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future, the greater he will be. View quote
Denis Diderot
Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian. Grace causes the Christian to act, reason the philosopher. View quote
Denis Diderot
All our virtues depend on the faculty of the senses, and on the degree to which external things affect us. View quote
Denis Diderot
People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. View quote
Denis Diderot
Life is but a series of misunderstandings. View quote
Denis Diderot
I always sit here like a majestic prick between two balls. (Denis Diderot)
He does not confound it with probability; he takes for true what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is only probable. He does more, and here you have a great perfection of the philosopher: when he has no reason by which to judge, he knows how to live in suspension of judgment... The philosophical spirit is, then, a spirit of observation and exactness, which relates everything to true principles... View quote
Denis Diderot
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. View quote
Denis Diderot
The philosopher forms his principles from an infinity of particular observations. View quote
Denis Diderot
What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. View quote
Denis Diderot