Denis Diderot

Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things…

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

The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find…

Good music is very close to primitive language…

No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings…

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you…

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild…

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of…

Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully and is good, self…

It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it…

Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We…

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African…

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the…

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on…

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is…