Quotes from Denis Diderot

Tous les jours on couche avec des femmes qu'on n'aime pas, et l'on ne couche pas avec des femmes qu'on aime. Every day we sleep with women we do not love and don't sleep with the women we do love.

His hands would plait the priest's guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you've got to keep your feet warm.

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

No matter how much a man may study, reflect and meditate on all the books in the world, he is nothing more than a minor scribe unless he has read the great book.

Nothing is duller than a progression of common chords. One wants some contrast, which breaks up the clear white light and makes it iridescent.

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 light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

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 they're going?

El pueblo, eterno esclavo de los tiranos que lo oprimen, de los bribones que lo engañan y de los bufones que lo divierten.

I give my mind the liberty to follow the first wise or foolish idea that presents itself, just as in the avenue de Foy our dissolute youths follow close on the heels of some strumpet, then leave her to pursue another, attacking all of them and attaching themselves to none. My thoughts are my strumpets.

Rendre la vertu aimable, le vice odieux, le ridicule saillant. Voilà le projet de tout homme qui prend la plume, le pinceau et le ciseau.

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.

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 ?

There are two public prosecutors, and one of them is at your door, punishing crimes against society; the other is nature herself. She is familiar with all those vices that escape the law.

Mind what you do; if you deceive me once I shall never believe you again.

Prawda ma swoje strony uderzajÄ…ce, które siÄ™ chwyta, gdy siÄ™ ma talent. - Tak, gdy siÄ™ ma talent. Ale gdy ktoÅ› nie ma? - Gdy nie ma, nie powinien pisa?.

Se me debe exigir que busque la verdad, pero no que la encuentre.

Nie wiem, co to zasady, chyba ?e tak nazywamy prawidÅ'a, które przypisuje siÄ™ innym, a nie sobie. MyÅ›lÄ™ tak, a nie umiaÅ'bym siÄ™ powstrzyma? od czynienia inaczej.

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

Because, without knowing what is written up above, none of us knows what we want or what we are doing, and we follow our whims which we call reason, or our reason which is often nothing but a dangerous whim which sometimes turns out well, sometimes badly.

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.

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