Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off. Denis Diderot More Quotes by Denis Diderot More Quotes From Denis Diderot I like better for one to say some foolish thing upon important matters than to be silent. That becomes the subject of discussion and dispute, and the truth is discovered. Denis Diderot silenceimportantmatter There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people. Denis Diderot sovereignwarpeople I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity. Denis Diderot vanitygivendesire You have to make it happen. Denis Diderot make-it-happenliteraturehappens Une danse est un poe' me. A dance is a poem. Denis Diderot The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers. Denis Diderot sexualityloverspeople It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. Denis Diderot religiousgodmistake It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it. Denis Diderot conventionshuman-natureshould There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Denis Diderot reflectionmeanknowledge 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 governmenteuropecountry He whom we call a gentleman is no longer the man of Nature. Denis Diderot gentlemanhe-manmen To be born in imbecility, in the midst of pain and crisis; to be the plaything of ignorance, error, need, sickness, wickedness, and passions; to return step by step to imbecility, from the time of lisping to that of doting; to live among knaves and charlatans of all kinds; to die between one man who takes your pulse and another who troubles your head; never to know where you come from, why you come and where you are going! That is what is called the most important gift of our parents and nature. Life. Denis Diderot painignorancefear Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them. Denis Diderot madnessgeniusmen 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 literaturesometimesorder You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained. Denis Diderot wiseforeveryears It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,--who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,--who can work upon others at his pleasure. Denis Diderot voiceplaymen La poe sie veutquelque chose d'e norme, debarbare et de sauvage. Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage. Denis Diderot scalessavagesneeds And his hands would plait the priest's entrails, Denis Diderot ropekingshands The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre Denis Diderot excellentgivinginspire There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies. Denis Diderot literaturemaymen
