Denis Diderot Quotes

The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dicebox in hand, shaking the dice.

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

The first promise exchanged by two beings of flesh was at the foot of a rock that was crumbling into dust; they took as witness for their constancy a sky that is not the same for a single instant; everything changed in them and around them, and they believed their hearts free of vicissitudes. O children! always children!

كيف حاله؟
أفضل من الجميع . لقد مات!

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

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

But how do you know that the whole world hasn't its meninges, or that there isn't a big or little spider living in some corner of space with threads extending everywhere?

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.

Our real opinion is not one in which we have never wavered, but the one to which we have most regularly returned.

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

La reconnaissance est un fardeau, et tout fardeau est fait pour être secoué.

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

إنّ الشرف والفضيلة ، حين يكونا حقيقيين ، ليس لهما من ثمنٍ بتاتاً عند الذين سعدوا بامتلاكهما

We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man’s afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures … But what provokes me is that only their adverse side is considered … and yet only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.

C'est que, faute de savoir ce qui est écrit là-haut, on ne sait ni ce qu'on veut ni ce qu'on fait, et qu'on suit sa fantaisie qu'on appelle raison, ou sa raison qui n'est souvent qu'une dangereuse fantaisie qui tourne tantôt bien, tantôt mal.