Wisdom of Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher and writer. He was a major figure in the Age of Enlightenment and best known as co-founder and contributor to the Encyclopédie, an encyclopedia of the arts and sciences.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Denis Diderot.

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

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.”

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

“A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.”

“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.”

“Distance is a great promoter of admiration.”

“You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.”

“When we know to read our own hearts, we acquire wisdom of the hearts of others.”

“Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.”

“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.”

“The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations. He does not confuse truth with plausibility, he takes for truth what is true, for false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable. The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy.”

“In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.”

“Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.”

“As long as the centuries continue to unfold, 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.”

“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.”

“There comes a moment during which almost every girl or boy falls into melancholy; they are tormented by a vague inquietude which rests on everything and finds nothing to calm it. They seek solitude; they weep; the silence to be found in cloister attracts them: the image of peace that seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish.”

“Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?”

“Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.”

“All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
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