Denis Diderot Quotes

French - Editor October 5, 1713 - July 31, 1784

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

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

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

If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.

Denis Diderot

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years.

Denis Diderot

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

Denis Diderot

There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.

Denis Diderot

Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.

Denis Diderot

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

One declaims endlessly against the passions; one imputes all of man's suffering to them. One forgets that they are also the source of all his pleasures.

Denis Diderot