Denis Diderot Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“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.”

“Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.”

“If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.”

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

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

“There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.”

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

“The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.”

“Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.”

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