Quotes from Denis Diderot

Comment s'étaient-ils rencontrés? Par hasard, comme tout le monde. Comment s'appelaient-ils? Que vous importe? D'où venaient-ils? Du lieu le plus prochain. Où allaient-ils? Est-ce que l'on sait où l'on va? Que disaient-ils? Le maître ne disait rien; et Jacques disait que son capitaine disait que tout ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas était écrit là-haut.

El primer juramento que se hicieron dos seres de carne y hueso fue al pie de una roca que se deshacía en polvo; pusieron por testigo de su constancia a un cielo que no es el mismo ni un solo instante; todo pasaba en ellos y en torno a ellos y creían sus corazones libres de vicisitudes. ¡Oh, niños, siempre niños...!

You spit on a petty thief, but you can't withhold a sort of respect from a great criminal. His courage bowls you over. His brutality makes you shudder. What you value in everything is consistency of character.

To rot under marble or to rot under earth is still to rot.

I don't think much of these eccentrics. Some people turn them into familiar acquaintances, even friends. Once a year they interest me, when I meet them, because their character stands in contrast to others and they break that fastidious uniformity which our education, our social conventions, and our habitual proprieties have introduced.

Engullimos de un sorbo la mentira que nos adula y bebemos gota a gota la verdad que nos amarga.

Najsretniji je onaj ?ovjek koji je u?inio sretnima najviše ljudi.

LE PASSIONI MODERATE, PRODUCONO UOMINI MEDIOCRI...

There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.

The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.

Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.

The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.

One cannot get rid of a good education, nor, unfortunately, of a bad one, which often is such because one has not wanted to defray the expenses of a good one.

Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.

It is raining bombs on the house of the Lord. I go in fear and trembling lest one of these terrible bombers gets into difficulties.

The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.

The enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac.

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

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.