Denis Diderot (1713–84) was a French philosopher, playwright, and novelist. He is best known as the editor of the Encyclopédie (1751–72,) an influential publication of the Age of Enlightenment.
Born in Langres, Compagne, Diderot was trained by the Jesuits at home and in Paris. He then abandoned the priesthood as a career and studied law. In 1734, Diderot decided to seek his fortune by writing. For ten years, he earned his living by translating English works and tutoring the children of wealthy families. He became a friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Diderot’s Pensées Philosophiques (1746; Philosophical Thoughts, 1916) was burned by the Parlement of Paris in 1746. In 1749 he was imprisoned for his Lettre surles aveugles (1749; An Essay on Blindness, 1750,) an irreligious writing.
In 1748, Diderot was encouraged to edit a translation of Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia (1727.) He extended the scope of the Encyclopédie and, with mathematician Jean d’Alembert, enlisted many contributors such as Voltaire.
As a philosopher, Diderot advanced from Christianity through deism to atheism. His books On the Interpretation of Nature (1754) and D’Alembert’s Dream (1769) disclose his scientific materialism. Jacques the Fatalist (1796) and Rameau’s Nephew (1761–62) illuminate his determinism. Diderot also wrote plays, and art and literary criticism.
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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.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Genius
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.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Virtue, Virtues
The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Divorce
Ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Prejudice
His hands would plait the priests guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.
—Denis Diderot
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Order
Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Virtue
There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.
—Denis Diderot
We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
—Denis Diderot
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Desire, Desires
I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don’t remember ever having seen one weep.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Actors, Acting
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Theory
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
—Denis Diderot
The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
—Denis Diderot
The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Religion, Fanaticism
Distance is a great promoter of admiration!.
—Denis Diderot
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Science, Philosophy
Every man has his dignity. I’m willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Dignity
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Morals, Morality
Impenetrable in their dissimulation, cruel in their vengeance, tenacious in their purposes, unscrupulous as to their methods, animated by profound and hidden hatred for the tyranny of man — it is as though there exists among them an ever-present conspiracy toward domination, a sort of alliance like that subsisting among the priests of every country.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Women
No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Freedom
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.
—Denis Diderot
We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Flattery
What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step toward truth.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Trust
Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
—Denis Diderot
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.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Gambling
When we know how to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the hearts of others.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Wisdom
Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Health
It is the man who is cool and collected, who is master of his countenance, his voice, his actions, his gestures, of every part, who can work upon others at his pleasure.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Self-Control
Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Romance, Enthusiasm
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Medicine
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