Denis Diderot (1713–84) was a French philosopher, playwright, and novelist. He is best known as the editor of the Encyclopédie (1751–72,) an influential publication of the Age of Enlightenment.
Born in Langres, Compagne, Diderot was trained by the Jesuits at home and in Paris. He then abandoned the priesthood as a career and studied law. In 1734, Diderot decided to seek his fortune by writing. For ten years, he earned his living by translating English works and tutoring the children of wealthy families. He became a friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Diderot’s Pensées Philosophiques (1746; Philosophical Thoughts, 1916) was burned by the Parlement of Paris in 1746. In 1749 he was imprisoned for his Lettre surles aveugles (1749; An Essay on Blindness, 1750,) an irreligious writing.
In 1748, Diderot was encouraged to edit a translation of Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia (1727.) He extended the scope of the Encyclopédie and, with mathematician Jean d’Alembert, enlisted many contributors such as Voltaire.
As a philosopher, Diderot advanced from Christianity through deism to atheism. His books On the Interpretation of Nature (1754) and D’Alembert’s Dream (1769) disclose his scientific materialism. Jacques the Fatalist (1796) and Rameau’s Nephew (1761–62) illuminate his determinism. Diderot also wrote plays, and art and literary criticism.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Denis Diderot
His hands would plait the priests guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.
—Denis Diderot
Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Virtue
The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Death, Dying
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Scientists, Science
We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Flattery
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.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Gambling
The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Christianity
Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Proverbial Wisdom, Justice
Black-letter record of the ages.
—Denis Diderot
Impenetrable in their dissimulation, cruel in their vengeance, tenacious in their purposes, unscrupulous as to their methods, animated by profound and hidden hatred for the tyranny of man—it is as though there exists among them an ever-present conspiracy toward domination, a sort of alliance like that subsisting among the priests of every country.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Women
I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don’t remember ever having seen one weep.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Acting, Actors
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Government
You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Risk, Danger
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.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Knowledge
The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Authority, Law, Lawyers
Good music is very close to primitive language.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Music
People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Virtues, Virtue
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
Topics: Silence
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
Topics: Morality, Morals
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Vice
When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Superstition
The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.
—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
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.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Tyranny
Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Order
Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Patriotism
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Desire, Desires
It is the man who is cool and collected, who is master of his countenance, his voice, his actions, his gestures, of every part, who can work upon others at his pleasure.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Self-Control
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Justice, Leadership, Leaders
Distance is a great promoter of admiration!.
—Denis Diderot
Topics: Admiration
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