262 Quotes by Denis Diderot

Bizim kadar budala olmayanları akıllı saymayız.

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

Does anyone really know where they're going to?

What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment. I reproached you just now with estimating the perfection of things by your own capacity; and I might accuse you here of measuring its duration by the length of your own days.

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

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?

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

It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism.

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