Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderotʁo]; 5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert...
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth5 October 1713
Une danse est un poe' me. A dance is a poem.
space may matter
Time, matter, space - all, it may be, are no more than a point.
heart blood atheism
Gentleness and peacefulness regulate our proceedings; theirs are dictated by fury. We employ reason, they accumulate faggots. They preach nothing but love, and breathe nothing but blood. Their words are humane, but their hearts are cruel.
vanity desire given
I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.
race hands soul
Those authors into whose hands nature has placed a magic wand, with which they no sooner touch us than we forget the unhappiness in life, than the darkness leaves our soul, and we are reconciled to existence, should be placed among the benefactors of the human race.
feelings sublime testicles
There's a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
risk suspicious
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
country believe poverty
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.
order perfection fleeting
What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment. I reproached you just now with estimating the perfection of things by your own capacity; and I might accuse you here of measuring its duration by the length of your own days.
character heart men
Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.
thinking judging feelings
I feel, I think, I judge; therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.
distance admiration promoters
Distance is a great promoter of admiration
stupid people wicked
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.
ideas
My ideas are my whores.