Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Denis Diderot

French Encyclopedist, Philosopher, Author and Art Critic

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

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

"Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey."

"Sentences are like sharp nails, which force truth upon our memories."

"Shakespeare’s fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste."

"Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy."

"Skepticism is the first step towards truth."

"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."

"The best order of things, as I see it, is the one that includes me; to hell with the most perfect of worlds, if I'm not part of it."

"Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian. Grace causes the Christian to act, reason the philosopher. Other men are carried away by their passions, their actions not being preceded by reflection: these are the men who walk in darkness. On the other hand, the philosopher, even in his passions, acts only after reflection; he walks in the dark, but by a torch. The philosopher forms his principles from an infinity of particular observations. Most people adopt principles without thinking of the observations that have produced them, they believe the maxims exist, so to speak, by themselves. But the philosopher takes maxims from their source; he examines their origin; he knows their proper value, and he makes use of them only in so far as they suit him. Truth is not for the philosopher a mistress who corrupts his imagination and whom he believes to be found everywhere; he contents himself with being able to unravel it where he can perceive it. He does not confound it with probability; he takes for true what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is only probable. He does more, and here you have a great perfection of the philosopher: when he has no reason by which to judge, he knows how to live in suspension of judgment... The philosophical spirit is, then, a spirit of observation and exactness, which relates everything to true principles."

"Scepticism is the first step towards truth."

"Superstition is more offensive to God than atheism."

"The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers."

"The first promise exchanged by two beings of flesh was at the foot of a rock that was crumbling into dust; they took as witness for their constancy a sky that is not the same for a single instant; everything changed in them and around them, and they believed their hearts free of vicissitudes. O children! always children!"

"The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me."

"The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me."

"The following general definition of an animal: a system of different organic molecules that have combined with one another, under the impulsion of a sensation similar to an obtuse and muffled sense of touch given to them by the creator of matter as a whole, until each one of them has found the most suitable position for it shape and comfort."

"The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children."

"The first step towards philosophy is incredulity. [last words to his daughter, shortly before his death]"

"The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law."

"The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action."

"The philosopher forms his principles from an infinity of particular observations. Most people adopt principles without thinking of the observations that have produced them, they believe the maxims exist, so to speak, by themselves. But the philosopher takes maxims from their source; he examines their origin; he knows their proper value, and he makes use of them only in so far as they suit him."

"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."

"The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the future, the greater he will be, and all these philosophers and ministers and truth-telling men who have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in death? This: That prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O Posterity! Holy and sacred stay of the unhappy and the oppressed; thou who art just, thou who art incorruptible, thou who findest the good man, who unmaskest the hypocrite, who breakest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy consoling faith never, never abandon me!"

"The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual."

"The number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes."

"The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned."

"The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers."

"The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled."

"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."

"The truth is its striking that the catches when he has talent."

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

"There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father."

"The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum."

"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."

"There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. 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."

"There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies."

"There's a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness."

"There is only one passion, the passion for happiness."

"To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!"

"Truth is not for the philosopher a mistress who corrupts his imagination and whom he believes to be found everywhere; he contents himself with being able to unravel it where he can perceive it. He does not confound it with probability; he takes for true what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is only probable. He does more, and here you have a great perfection of the philosopher: when he has no reason by which to judge, he knows how to live in suspension of judgment."

"To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature."

"Time, matter, space — all, it may be, are no more than a point."

"To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him."

"We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves."

"Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: "My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly." This stranger is a theologian."

"We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man’s afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures... only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded."

"Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control."

"We love, without suspecting it, everything that gives us our inclinations, seduces us and excuse our weakness."

"We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter."