His opulence impoverishes him by multiplying his needs.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784) was a French philosopher, writer, and art critic. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie.
It is because I had too much that I squandered. The peaceful stream flows endlessly. The impetuous torrent [...] leaves its bed dry.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Oh cruel thought, oh comparison that tears me apart! What was I? What have I become?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
If fortune has abandoned you, it will not be said that I have done as she has.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
They speak of him as a good man who is no more; as a night-walker who has fallen from the top of his house.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Alas! I was born for infamy.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Children of fortune, it is true our mother is mad; but because she sometimes treats us ill, must we give up on ourselves and be discouraged?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
And what makes [fortune] so charming, if not its inequalities?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
But is it ever the time to be vile?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
If only all the harm were gathered on the head of the guilty; but the innocent must suffer...
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Cease reproaches that come too late; they penetrate and do not heal.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Heaven surely has its designs in all that it allows, and perhaps it is a crime to complain.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Show me a single child of this turn of mind [...] whose depravity has not increased with age...
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Your presence is the only good I wish for, the only need I feel when I am deprived of it.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
All the wealth in the world will never be anything to me compared to your happiness.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
I have often wondered why [...] I was so ill-suited for society. It is because [...] I do not know that cold, meaningless language one speaks to the indifferent; in it, I am either silent or indiscreet.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
When the heart and mind are silent, and only the lips move and make noise, we are bound to be bored with ourselves and others.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
These trifles, put end to end, form the most important of all stories, that of the friend of our heart.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Whole years of pursuit for a moment's enjoyment, that is the arithmetic [of passions].
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One fears boredom too much, ridicule strikes too keenly, for one to value virtue at its true price.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
In everything, it is almost always the lack of success that brings shame. People of spirit feel remorse only for having missed their shot.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One is not worthy of someone when one can do without them.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
All the small, measured passions [...] demand as much as the great ones, and give back almost nothing.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Virtue is a title that recommends us to all men.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It seems my mind goes mad in strong winds. Whatever the weather, that is the state of my heart.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
They have such actions behind them [...] and yet they walk with their heads held high. They speak to you of vice and virtue without stammering, without blushing.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I see all this, and still I break lances in defense of the human species.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
The great question of happiness and virtue would be much advanced [if we knew] the unknown and secret history of the villain and the good man.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Does not this habitual hypocrisy eventually stifle the cry of conscience? [...] doesn't the heart finally resolve to be silent?
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
In a short time they become insolent, unless the heart is ill at ease when the countenance is at its best.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
When I see my friends' eyes cloud over and their faces lengthen, no reluctance can hold, and they can do with me what they will.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
We were [...] in the sad and magnificent drawing-room, and there we formed, variously occupied, a most pleasant picture.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Who would dare change anything in that work? It is so well made.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I looked at her, and I thought [...] that she was an angel, and that one would have to be more wicked than Satan to approach her with a dishonest thought.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
If he met innocent ones, [...] he would quite like to instruct them; he says it is another kind of beauty.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I hardly know any women who respect themselves as much as she does.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
She has a devilish wit. [...] it is her frankness above all that pleases me.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I would almost wager that she has not told a deliberate lie since she reached the age of reason.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
[...] remember that pleasure also has its fatigue.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Your absence has leveled everything; I carry everywhere on my chest a weight that presses on me without cease and sometimes suffocates me.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Oh my friend! If you suffered but half of my sorrow, you would not withstand it.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
If by some enchantment I suddenly found you beside me, there are moments when I could die of joy.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It is certain that I know neither propriety nor respect that could stop me.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I feel, in [...] imagining this moment, a shivering throughout my body, and almost faintness.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I should scold you, and I would kiss you…
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
The Conversation [...] is one of the most precious pearls in Diderot's philosophical casket.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
...here is a very piquant booklet that Mr. Diderot has taken from his portfolio to pay homage to a beautiful lady...
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
[The philosopher] had a very free way of thinking, [...] and hardly concealed it.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
We ask for the indulgence of the learned [...] for the liberty we have taken in touching the work of an author who so rightly deserves their esteem.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
This dialogue is not without depth, but it is everywhere concealed by the naïveté and simplicity of the discourse.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
It would be desirable for important matters to always be treated with the same impartiality and in the same spirit of tolerance.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
The philosopher does not aim to bring the lady to his opinions; and she, for her part, listens to his reasons without ill humor...
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
...and they part from one another with love and esteem.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
In translating this dialogue, it seemed to us that we were truly witnessing their conversation; we hope that the reader will experience the same effect.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
...one was often liable to attribute to one of the characters what belonged to the other.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
...we did not scruple to correct [...] whenever we thought we saw [...] a more accurate word, a more acceptable form.
1773-1774
Source: Conversation of a Philosopher with the Marechale de ***
[...] there can be neither good physics nor good philosophy [without chemical knowledge].
1770
Source: Philosophical Principles Concerning Matter and Motion
[...] a great part of these doubts, so difficult to clarify through metaphysics, even the most daring, are easily resolved by chemistry.
1770
Source: Philosophical Principles Concerning Matter and Motion
To whom then would you have envy address itself, if not to merit whose brilliance offends it?
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Close your ear, never reply. Continue to be honest. [...] leave it to your conduct and your works to defend you.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
The wicked are strong only against those who resemble them.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
It is certain that an allegory that is not rare and sublime is a bad thing.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
When I have hurt even a stranger, my pain begins when theirs ceases.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
When gentle men once step out of their character, one no longer knows what they will become.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
You are a bizarre compound of tenderness and harshness. [...] there are moments when one cannot bear you, and yet it is never possible to leave you.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
They inquire about your successes, and one sees that the answer one gives them is not at all the one they expect.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Virtue is also a little contagious.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
I defy all the wicked of the earth. They may take my life, but only I can dishonor myself.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
It takes but the firm voice of one good man speaking out to stifle that of a hundred wicked ones, and that good man shows himself in the end.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
It is from the soil itself that one must bring forth the poets, the writers, the orators, the painters, the sculptors, the musicians.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
When I say luxury, I mean that which masks misery and not that which is born of abundance. They bear the same name, but they do not resemble each other at all.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Those whom heaven has endowed with a great head and a great soul are ignorant of very few things. Their misfortune, [...] is not having enough time for all they have to do.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Never defend either your works or your reputation. It is lost time, at the very least. Apologies are not read.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
The great cities are teeming with people whom misery has made industrious.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
They neither steal nor swindle; but they are to swindlers what swindlers are to rogues.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
Their main occupation is to spy on the follies of individuals and to profit from the foolishness of the public.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
They know everything, they do everything, they have secrets for everything; they come and go, they insinuate themselves.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
Are you seeking a pension? They have the minister's ear. Do you have a lawsuit? They will plead for you.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
There is nothing like belonging to a group. However ridiculous a work may be, it is promoted, and it succeeds.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
[...] from the duchess to the commoner, there was not a woman who did not have her own, either for show or for a reason.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
The [authorities], who had announced the chattering of the jewels as a divine punishment [...], did not see without a shudder a machine that thwarted the vengeance of heaven and their own hopes.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
[...] there is no salvation for anyone who shall use it.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
Let the voice of your jewels awaken that of your consciences; and do not blush to confess crimes that you were not ashamed to commit.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
Submit yourselves, they cried, to the will of Brama.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
But no matter how loudly they cried, the muzzles went the way of sleeveless dresses and quilted pelisses.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
This time, they were left to catch a cold in their temples.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
People adopted the gags, and only gave them up when they recognized their uselessness, or when they grew tired of them.
1748
Source: The Indiscreet Jewels
I beg you [...] to have me sent away from Paris immediately; I feel myself drawn to all sorts of vices, and I am on the verge of ruining myself.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
In the midst of all the calamities [...], he was recognized as having so much resourcefulness, intelligence, and resolve that he was unanimously chosen to go [...] and request aid.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
His steadfastness and his integrity have successively passed through the harshest trials.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
Poor, he [...] enjoys the most unlimited consideration in a land where one is valued only in proportion to the wealth one possesses.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
His destitution has become respectable even to his creditors.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
The different administrators [...], divided in opinion and character, all came together in attesting to his enlightenment and his virtues.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
[His] memoirs on improvement [...] were no longer to be found, [...] perhaps because they were suppressed by clerks with an interest in preventing his projects.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
He distinguished himself there [...] by his boldness, showing himself to be above any consideration other than that of the general good.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
He won the governor's highest esteem, even while contradicting him, because fortunately this governor was an excellent man.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
He had nothing left but his honor and a little credit, two inestimable assets that he would never sacrifice.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
[He] was never swayed by the pernicious example of a multitude of scoundrels who prospered around him.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
[...] he preferred to endure destitution rather than escape it by dishonest and common means.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
I have heard it said, even by his enemies, that they knew of no duties [...] that he did not deserve by his virtues and his enlightenment.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
It is worthy [of a great man] to extend a hand [...] to the most honest man there is.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
[The man] is forty years old and is still waiting for a moment of happiness.
1760-1779
Source: Letters to Abbot Le Monnier
I only ever see you when you're upset.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
It is cruel to live; when you have my experience, you will be even more disgusted with it.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
Merit perpetually scorned. Folly praised from morning till night.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
One must be insane to love life.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
One finds a thousand times more pleasure in sacrificing one's desires than in satisfying them.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
Because I was born with more advantages than another, must I torment myself?
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
To constantly sacrifice one's happiness to conventional propriety.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
There will be no shortage of people eager to govern others; but as for those who are willing to be governed, [...] let them be left in peace.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
One cherishes a passion far more for the sorrows it consoles than for the pleasures it gives.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
Either I was mistaken, or he has ceased to love me. This shattered illusion has caused me the most intense pain.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
It is precisely the repeated miseries that make life bitter and unbearable.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
Why count only intense feelings as happiness? They always cost too much and bring only sorrow.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
There are a thousand pleasant things that happen every moment; one enjoys them [...], but has the ingratitude to forget them.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
There is nothing that reconciles one to life so much as an honest word or a beautiful deed.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
Seek out virtue, and you may find it as common as vice; but it remains unknown, because it wishes to be.
1760
Source: The Marquise de Claye and Saint-Alban
Any man who [...] at the moment a woman is no longer in a position to render him the same good services, slanders her, [...] is an unworthy person who deserves no consideration.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
When one is wicked enough to commit a dark deed, one should not have the cowardice to deny it.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
I cannot stand people with a honeyed tone and perfidious methods.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
[...] the flatly ironic turn of phrase, which wounds even more than insult.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
[He] preferred to [...] sacrifice her to his supposed needs.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
An ordinary woman would believe herself freed [...] if she did not conceive that it is from this very moment that her enslavement begins.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
[One] has acquired the right to complain, even without reason; [the other] has lost the right to reply, even when the first is wrong.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
It is better to suffer than to suspect one's heart.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
I do not see a great advantage in succeeding, and I see a very real disadvantage in failing to succeed.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
What one loses in [another's] mind through lack of success is far greater than what one gains from applause.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
A refusal from the public [...] always has an effect. That is how man is built.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
I am not surprised by the boredom in a city where there is so little to suit one's heart, character, and personal qualities.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
The order one begins to put into one's affairs, and the glance [...] one casts toward the future, gives a good opinion of oneself.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
Be wise, and you will be happy.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Miss Jodin
[...] all readers who are greater friends of truth than of Plato.
1760
Source: The Nun
The pretension of wanting to transform a novel into a historical document is senseless. [A novel] is more than history, and by reducing it [...] one diminishes it while trying to aggrandize it.
1760
Source: The Nun
The admission that a work is a work of art does not diminish the artist [...] nor the effect that this work was intended to produce, since the artist took strict reality as a guide.
1760
Source: The Nun
If it is true [...] that in all our pleasures [...] there is always a little illusion, they are prolonged and even increased [...] in proportion to the strength and duration of this enchanting prestige [...].
1760
Source: The Nun
By taking away [illusion] from us, one destroys in us a fertile source of diverse enjoyments, and perhaps even one of the most active causes of our happiness.
1760
Source: The Nun
There are so many different points of view from which one can consider the same object! And men [...] are so diversely affected by the same things and often by the same words.
1760
Source: The Nun
[...] authorities, whatever their source, are generally quite insignificant in the eyes of the philosopher, and should be used [...] with as much sobriety as circumspection and choice.
1760
Source: The Nun
One should only print from an author what is worthy of being read. With this honest rule, there would be fewer books and more taste among the public.
1760
Source: The Nun
An editor [...] would have reduced Jacques the Fatalist to a hundred pages, or perhaps he would never have published it at all.
1760
Source: The Nun
They are a few specks of gold scattered, buried in a dunghill where no one will be tempted to look for them; and, for that very reason, they are isolated, sterile, and lost ideas.
1760
Source: The Nun
The first impression, always so difficult to erase, has been made.
1760
Source: The Nun
This more or less keen need that all mediocre men have to console themselves for their nullity, by depreciating the greatest geniuses, and by curiously seeking out their faults [...].
1760
Source: The Nun
Does this conclusion from Naigeon not destroy all his preceding argumentation, and is one not tempted to see, in his scruples, only the revenge of a scooped editor?
1760
Source: The Nun
It has been said of them [the editors] that they live off the foolishness of the dead; and this is all too true.
1760
Source: The Nun
Never was The Nun, in Diderot's mind, intended to become the breviary for mothers of families. What he had in view was the reform of perpetual vows.
1760
Source: The Nun
Tyranny is the work of the people and not of kings.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Society is made more for the happiness of the wicked man than for that of man in general.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The true homeland is the country where one lives.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
One must seek the means of happiness in one's own nature.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The splendor of nations [...] has always grown at the expense of their felicity.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The passion for reading the future has been the fury of all ages.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Immortality is a] chimera always precious to men.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Man] is the author of governments and of tyranny.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Fanaticism [...] attracts the greatest calamities.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Liberty, substituted for monopoly, [...] makes establishments flourish.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
It is a vice to raise monuments that [...] can insult vanquished nations.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Not all men are capable of friendship.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
National jealousies [...] lead to horrors.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
How unreasonable the institution [of convents] is, compared with the beautiful society of the Beavers.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Hostilities] without a declaration of war [are] perfidy.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The number of volumes in a work depends on the length of the manuscript, [...] on the subject and the way it is treated, all things that concern only the author.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One does not bestow upon oneself the talent for writing well.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There is no author who [...] does not consult his own particular taste, the nature of his work, and the kind of readers he expects.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[The only] recourse is to continue at my discretion an enterprise into which he has entered, without knowing where I would lead him.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Each has his own lights and his own principles; and one will do without consequence what another would blush to dare.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
As for the law [...] of distributing the surplus for free, one does not answer that [...]; one laughs at it.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] aspiring to a degree of perfection that is easy to conceive, but impossible to achieve [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I hate all disputes; I am tired of them; but it would be very dishonest of me to remain silent and hidden [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The publisher is the man with the money, and that is quite enough.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The author and the publisher are two players in a game: if the latter pays as he wishes, on the other hand he does not know what he is buying.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Joking on this point would be of an unforgivable ignorance and stupidity.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One can receive lessons on what one does not know, and one is indebted to the one who instructs us, however superior one may be to him otherwise.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I am my own witness to have done for the best, in a word, everything it was in my power to do.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He knows a lot; but he doesn't know everything, nor do I.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
An even more unfortunate position [...] would be to have lost one's honor and kept one's edition; and that is not without precedent.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
he would love her if he would take the time.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
In the long run, he made a friend of her; he came to appreciate her character; he felt the strength of her mind.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
Are women of her merit so common that one should grieve to possess one?
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
Whence comes this cruel indocility of my heart? Mad heart, extravagant heart, I shall tame you.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
great princes are above the law.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
[He] could, in good conscience, have two wives, [...] by virtue of a dispensation from the law, which would only cost him a hundred thousand écus.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
He wants everything he sees [...] he breaks, he smashes, he bites, he scratches; it has been forbidden to contradict him on anything whatsoever.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
Her cheerfulness and caresses stole whole days from him, and made him forget the universe.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
[She was] a very respectable woman, who often bored him, and whom he saw more willingly in his council than in his private apartments.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
the gods could have dispensed with giving men the organs of speech, if they had had [...] a lot of love; we would have understood each other wonderfully without saying a word.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
there would have been only the language of actions, which is rarely ambiguous.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
if charming women are rare, they are also very difficult to captivate.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
To restrain her was to work surely to displease her.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
one sees the portrait [of a past hero] [...] whenever the nation is displeased with the reigning prince: it is thus that it allows itself to complain.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
everything degenerated [...]. All that remains of them is a contested tradition. We speak of their age as we speak of the golden age.
circa 1748
Source: The White Bird, a Blue Tale
They swore that, whatever it contained, they would not be offended; they were offended, and it was torn up.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I am nearing the moment of my freedom, of the use of my time, and of a new order of life.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I have examined myself well; I am not suffering; I will not suffer.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I would swear she is bringing about her own misfortune; but I have warned her of it; and now I am quits with her and with myself.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] but are we then children our whole lives?
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If all this does not come to a good end [...], the philosopher will be at his wit's end.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If you were truly sure of me, how you would laugh!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I am neither unjust nor mad; and perhaps, one day I will prove to you that I could be both.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I leave friendship in its full scope; but I absolutely want the restitution of my time.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] they oppose it; and they accept you as a judge.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
They imagine that [...] you will sacrifice me for the sake of considerations, of proprieties [...]. I believe [...] that you will do no such thing.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I was delightfully mad, and I swear it was without effort.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
And the happy thing is, this is my last journey.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The doctor ceases to sympathize, [...] much like, at the fourth performance of a tragedy, the spectator ceases to cry.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
In the [rich class], luxury is an ostentation of wealth; in the [poor class], luxury is a mask for poverty.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Indigence is the only thing one blushes for.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
A sovereign can shower his favorite with riches, but he cannot give him knowledge or virtue.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
What do I care if he makes whores, as long as the whores don't make ministers?
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Whoever declares himself the protector of ignorance declares himself the enemy of the State.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
The Englishman, an enemy of tyranny at home, is the most ferocious despot when abroad.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Only that which conforms to nature is lasting, for nature never ceases to reclaim its rights.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Why so few honest men? It is because misfortune dogs the heels of probity almost everywhere.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
It is the idle man who gorges on succulent dishes, it is the working man who drinks water and eats bread, and both perish [...], one from indigestion and the other from starvation.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
I am convinced that human industry has gone much too far, and that if it had stopped much sooner [...] we would be no worse off.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
It takes but a moment to admire; it takes a century to create admirable things.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Any condition that does not allow a man to fall ill without falling into misery is a bad one.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Without force, what can common sense do? Everything, with time.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Tolerance subjects the priest to the prince; intolerance subjects the prince to the priest.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
A skilled painter can undoubtedly conceive a beautiful thing from a poor description, but conversely, a poor description can reduce a masterpiece of painting to nothing.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
If a modern painting had passed through the hands of [such a cold critic], I ask you, what would be left of it?
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Does nascent art dare to attempt enormous compositions, and [...] does it know how to maintain such propriety, to show as much choice, intelligence, and taste?
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
It seems to me that in the arts, several things advance at an equal pace. When the execution is wretched, the choice of the moment is poor, the incidents are meager...
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Pausanias is no enthusiast. He is a cold man, who observes coldly, who writes coldly...
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
He who does not feel it does not know what the spirit of composition is.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Here we have proprieties so deeply considered, poetry so true and so strong for a nascent art.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
What better could one imagine today?
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
What do you expect me to think of the art with which the small groups are interwoven between the large masses and connect them? It seems quite learned for beginners.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
And is it a common artist who imagined and ordered this scene?
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
The more I meditate on the substance and accessories of this piece, the more advanced the intelligence of the [...] composition seems to me.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
[...] this frightened child covers his eyes with both hands.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
Say what you will, [...] it is frightening.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
The expression of sorrow is not as strong in any other figure; it was through her father's treason that [the country] had been taken and sacked.
1765-1769
Source: Letters to Falconet
There are no people more offended by wickedness than those who have never known what it costs to be good.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It is in France [...] that we are persecuted! And it is from the depths of the barbaric lands [...] of the north that a hand is extended to us!
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I ask for nothing better than to be happy. Is it my fault if I am not?
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
All of life is but a chain of deceptive hopes. We learn this too late: we tell it to our children, who believe none of it [...].
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Come now, since we are no better than those we say are worthless, let us suffer them and be silent.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
When I experience a great pleasure, I cannot help but wish for all those I love to enjoy it.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One of the great drawbacks of society is [...] the levity with which one makes commitments that dispose of all happiness.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One marries; one takes a job; one has a wife, children, before having any common sense. Ah! If only one could start over!
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
If life [...] were a thread of pure, unmixed happiness, who would want to risk it [...]? [...] Men would be but a vile herd of happy beings; no more heroic deeds.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
The sacrifice of talent to necessity would be less common if it were only a matter of oneself [...]. but for a wife, for children, what does one not resolve to do?
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
The philosophical clique is odious to people of high society, because people of high society are ignorant and frivolous, and a philosopher notices it [...].
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
We pass severe judgment on the conduct of others, without noticing that it applies directly to our own.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It is impossible to do either evil or good with impunity. One is punished for the former by the law, for the latter by envy.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
A people who believes that it is the belief in a God and not good laws that make honest people does not seem very advanced to me.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Sooner or later, there comes a moment when the notion [of God] that prevented the theft of a crown causes a hundred thousand men to be slaughtered.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Religion, well understood and practiced with enlightened zeal, cannot fail to elevate moral virtues.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
[Religion] even allies itself with natural knowledge; and when it is solid, the progress of the latter does not alarm it for its rights.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
However difficult it may be to discern the limits that separate the Empire of Faith from that of Reason, the Philosopher does not confuse their objects.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
There is as great a distance from Philosophy to Impiety as from Religion to Fanaticism; but from Fanaticism to Barbarity, there is but one step.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
By Barbarity I mean [...] that somber disposition which renders a man insensitive to the charms of Nature and Art, and to the sweetness of Society.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
[Some] have known of Religion only its Specter.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
I believe that this disorder [of indiscreet zeal] has caused more harm to Letters than all the fires of the Barbarians.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
All the efforts of disbelief were less to be feared than [indiscreet zeal]. Disbelief fights the proofs of Religion; [this zeal] tended to annihilate them.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
[...] half the Nation, bathing in piety in the blood of the other half, and violating, to uphold the cause of God, the first sentiments of humanity [...].
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
as if one had to cease to be human to show oneself to be religious!
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Religion and Morality have too close a connection for one to be able to contrast their fundamental principles.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
No Virtue without Religion; no happiness without Virtue.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
An enemy of enthusiasm and bigotry, [one must ensure that the mind] is not narrowed by singular opinions, nor [the heart] exhausted by puerile affections.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Love, like death, delights in confounding [races and conditions].
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Places] once so renowned for their riches, are now but vile hamlets where nothing recalls their former splendor.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Magnificent ruins are all that remains.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
On such a vast and fertile soil, one sees only a small town that would seem wretched even in the lands most mistreated by nature.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Hostilities [...] make fraudulent dealings infinitely more considerable.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
This burst of life ceases as soon as the ministry [...] deems it suitable to its interests to meddle in the quarrels of rival nations.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The extraction [of riches] would be impossible, unless roads were built, an undertaking that would frighten even more enterprising peoples.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
It was doubtless feared that the new colonists would adopt the customs of the old ones.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
They rejoiced at this departure, but they did not occupy the place that became vacant.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
These measures, though wise, have produced no good.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The faithlessness of administrators who appropriated the funds entrusted to them [...] has sent most of the new colonists to their graves.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The surrounding countryside offers nothing but brambles and a few herds.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The exclusive company formed [...] to revive the ashes [of a colony] achieved nothing.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
These priests [...] have not made the artful and deceitful vow to renounce everything, only to better enjoy everything.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Gather bachelors of both sexes in a single cloister, and you will not be long in seeing the community of men and women arise.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
It is likely that to conceal from the people the scandal of such a licentious life, all these women were consecrated to the service of the altars.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The people lent themselves all the more willingly to this kind of superstition, as it kept [...] their wives and daughters safe from seduction.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
There is no crime that the intervention of the gods does not consecrate, no virtue that it does not debase.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The notion of an absolute being is, in the hands of priests who abuse it, a destruction of all morality.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
A thing does not please the gods because it is good; but it is good because it pleases the gods.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The dances are almost all pantomimes of love. [...] everything breathes this passion, and expresses its pleasures and furies.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Everything conspires to the prodigious success of these voluptuous women: the art and richness of their attire, the skill they have in shaping their beauty.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
An adornment that is shocking at first glance can have a charm that pleases [...] through an inexplicable effect, but one that becomes perceptible with time.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
This veil that covers the breast does not hide its palpitations, its sighs, its soft undulations; it takes nothing away from the pleasure.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
This art of pleasing is the whole life, the whole occupation, the whole happiness [of some].
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Modesty, or rather natural reserve [...] cannot outweigh the prestige of practiced courtesans.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
It must be admitted that there are very sweet pleasures, and they come at a good price.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[It is] the apology for work against idleness, and for indigence against wealth.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
They say: Live first, then philosophize; I say quite the contrary: Philosophize first, and live after, if you can.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The influence [...] of the morals of distinguished citizens on the multitude that [...] imitates them almost without noticing.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Opinion [...] is originally but the effect of a small number of men who speak after having thought...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Reasoned errors and truths spread from one to another [...] until they establish themselves as articles of faith.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There, the whole apparatus of our discourse has vanished; only the last word remains.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Our writings operate only on a certain class of citizens, our speeches on all.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The people know that wheat must be cheap [...] but they are ignorant of the means [...] of reconciling the vicissitudes of harvests with their need, which does not vary.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Where is reason? In statesmen? [...] those who believe they know everything are hardly tempted to learn.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[Is reason] in the people? Unfortunately, they do not have the time to cultivate it, to extend it, and to use it.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The thing we talk about the most is the one we know the least about [...] we are naturally silent about what we believe we have thoroughly understood.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
We are that small number of heads which, placed on the neck of the great animal, drag the blind multitude after them...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is claimed [...] that two men cannot publicly dispute the same question without ending up becoming bitter, insulting each other, and hating each other.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He who reads a work without finding an improper term in it [...] either understands it superiorly, or does not understand it at all.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He portrayed the tenderness you have for me [...] in the most dreadful colors.
1760
Source: The Nun
What interest does he have in showing me peril where there is none? In turning the heart of a [person] away from the heart of her superior?
1760
Source: The Nun
Why is it [...] that after leaving you, [...] I was agitated, dreamy? Why could I neither pray nor occupy myself?
1760
Source: The Nun
I cannot help but distinguish merit where it lies, and be drawn to it with a sense of preference.
1760
Source: The Nun
Ask for my life, I will give it to you, but do not avoid me; I can no longer live without you...
1760
Source: The Nun
I take up too much space in your soul, which is so much lost for [something else] to which you owe it entirely.
1760
Source: The Nun
We have been loaded with heavy chains, which we are condemned to shake endlessly, with no hope of breaking them; let us try [...] to drag them.
1760
Source: The Nun
There is some knowledge so baneful that you could not acquire it without loss. It is your very innocence that has commanded respect [...]; more knowledgeable, you would have been less respected.
1760
Source: The Nun
So where is the harm in loving one another, in saying it, in showing it? It is so sweet!
1760
Source: The Nun
This is what happens sooner or later when one opposes the general inclination of nature: this constraint [...] diverts into disordered affections, [...] all the more violent for being ill-founded.
1760
Source: The Nun
One looks, while walking [...], without thinking, to see if the walls are very high; [...] one grasps the bars of one's gate, and shakes them gently, out of distraction...
1760
Source: The Nun
Their life is spent in the alternatives of error and despair.
1760
Source: The Nun
Could it be that we believe men are less sensitive to the depiction of our sorrows than to the image of our charms? And do we expect it is easier to seduce them than to touch them?
1760
Source: The Nun
In truth, he would be very wrong to attribute to me personally an instinct common to my entire sex. I am a woman, perhaps a little coquettish, what do I know? But it is natural and without artifice.
1760
Source: The Nun
One only truly knows one's own sorrows.
1760
Source: The Nun
Although you may be a very wicked man on stage, I know that you are a very gallant man in society.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[It is better to] entertain and instruct one's fellow citizens than to ruin them.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
My work has never earned me anything.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I would rather make men laugh than ruin them.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
You have [...] a right to my esteem as an actor, and to my friendship as a compatriot.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
And yet, a hermit is a very singular citizen.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] we would discuss the parts I have underlined, which you will understand nothing of if we are not face to face.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I am very glad that my work pleased you and that it touched you.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] if only one could speak to you without making you angry.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] or I know little of the depths of your soul.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Forget what I said about it and be sure that I will speak of it to you no more.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] a matter I reserve to speak to you about when you come.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] whatever the desire, or even the need, I may have for it.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Never have favors been less deserved, more unexpected; and never has gratitude been more keenly felt and more difficult to express.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Ah! Woe to him who would keep all his wits about him in my place; such a man would have a very cold heart.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
We men, [...] we have only borrowed virtues; a soul half our own, half belonging to those who mold it in childhood. We are made into what we are.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
A woman, when she is great, is so of her own accord. She owes nothing but to the heaven that formed her [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] there is a gentler, surer, more glorious art: to subjugate without carnage and to conquer without harm [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] what sovereigns would have obtained from genius if their good deeds had sought it out.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I have fortune enough if I know what true happiness consists of, and I will never have enough if I am ignorant of that point.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I cannot accept a merit that I do not have.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] the displacement and ill will of a clerk are enough to hinder, delay, and foil the most important projects.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If [an artist] creates a great and beautiful thing, [...] his success will be owed as much to peace [...] as to the excellence of his talent.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When Providence destines one for a throne, it is always a wretched one whom it condemns to infinite labors.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] nature has made obstacles only to distinguish great souls from common ones [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
What would sovereigns not make of us if they deigned to take the trouble!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] it befits sovereigns [...] to magnificently reward the slightest trifles one does for them.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Doubtless there have been beneficent sovereigns; but name me a single one who has put into his good deeds such singular delicacy [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There are only three things in this world that can truly make a man contemptible: an ardent love of wealth, of honors, and of life.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
As for me, there are so many things I can easily do without, that it costs me nothing to despise wealth.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
A piece of bread [...], a few books, a friend [...] that, with a clear conscience, is all I need.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Honors that do not bring duties with them are pure trifles created expressly to amuse big children.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
What a glorious companion, the most honored of saints, the Holy Saint of Doing Nothing!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Who can be happier than the one who only does what pleases them?
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
...this heavy and insipid farce we call life...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I would leave [life] as easily as I would pour a glass of Champagne wine [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
...friends who, ten to one, will impose a month of trouble on me for a single day of pleasure.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
...acquaintances who will [...] shout with joy; as if my presence, which they have gotten along wonderfully well without, were essential to their happiness.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
...my fellow citizens, half of whom go to bed overwhelmed by their ruin and the other half in despair, until they get up to contemplate this spectacle.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Why not stay [...]? Because I am a fool.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Wisdom [...] consists in feeling that it is madness to seek out circumstances, to dream of them and to become their dupe once again.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is so delightful to me to believe myself the object of your friendship that I have resolved to keep this belief.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There might come a time when you would love and esteem him infinitely more than the person who recommends him to your attention.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I find it harsh, dry, full of temper, and poor in ideas.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The author seems to me neither experienced enough, nor strong enough in his reasoning, to crush his adversary as he promised himself he would.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He feigns not to understand, or in some other instances, he does not understand.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He sees very well the disadvantages of the author's views; he does not see the disadvantages of his own.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] the issue will not be any more clarified.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The work in question will only have increased the number of works [...] that are no longer read.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The fight against a man of genius who knows the world and men, the human heart, the nature of society [...] is a perilous fight [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The only benefit the critic could derive from his work would be to turn it into a good letter to send to the one he called [...] his friend.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I see with sadness that men of letters value their moral character less than their literary talent.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[Such a criticism] will greatly harm its author, who should expect neither the indulgence of the public nor that of his friends.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[He] reasons as his head leads him; but he acts on principle; which is why I love him with all my heart, although my head does not think like his.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] his soul, which is good, will win over his head; he will end up not replying to me, and loving me more.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
All things considered, I am convinced that [he] will not publish his patched-up rags.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Freedom, combined with the courage they have to say everything, is, in my opinion, one of the main advantages of their school of thought.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The slave who toils in the mine [...] receives his meager wage at the end of the day, eats with appetite, and sleeps content. His greedy master [...] uses [the gold] to make himself wicked and unhappy.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
His opulence impoverishes him by multiplying his needs.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
It is because I had too much that I squandered it. The peaceful stream flows endlessly. The impetuous torrent [...] leaves its bed dry.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
O cruel thought, o comparison that tears me apart! What was I? What have I become?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
This man has ruined me, it is true; but it was out of friendship. Can I blame him for having been my friend?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
They speak of him as a good man who is no more; like a sleepwalker who has fallen from the roof of his house.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Children of fortune, it is true that our mother is mad; but because she sometimes mistreats us, must we abandon ourselves and become discouraged?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
And what makes [Fortune] so charming, if not her inconsistencies?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
But is it ever the time to be vile?
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
A woman's honor has its price, which varies: status, opulence, age, temperament, and a thousand other circumstances raise or lower it.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
There are, it is said, honest women who have become infatuated with [...] virtue, and who cannot be broken even by famine.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
If only all the harm fell upon the guilty party's head; but the innocent must suffer...
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Cease these reproaches that come too late; they penetrate and do not heal.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Heaven doubtless has its reasons for all it allows, and perhaps it is a crime to complain.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Detestable game, detestable intoxication, these are your consequences! [...] Deadly trances have succeeded the most delicious consolations of life.
1796
Source: The Gambler (Diderot)
Despite the distance of place and the difference of country, the taste for an art [...] must bring us closer.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
All people of letters and honest people have but one homeland.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[The subject] is its basis, and it is properly tolerance put into action.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I leave you absolutely in charge of all the changes you deem necessary.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I am sure that my work will gain much from passing through your hands.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is a second child that I will ask you to adopt once again...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The most precious advantage [...], is the friendship that I hope will result between us.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I am currently working [...] on a tragedy that, I hope, will be more fortunate.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is [...] the most theatrical and most dramatic subject that has ever been put on stage.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If you are willing to give it your care, this play cannot fail to succeed on your stage.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The Revolution had to break the power of the clergy to lift the ban that weighed upon [the play].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It had a success of tears and of opinion.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[The play] became a weapon of war, in the hands of liberals, against religious intolerance.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[Diderot] shows himself in all his philosophical undress.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
...some of the most vigorous scenes, which one would recognize by his touch.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It would take me a year and a large book to show as much wit as you.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It takes but a moment and a love for truth to be sensitive to a mark of kindness.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There are things that must be seen.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I can count sweet moments in my life.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
What is one thinking, persecuting an honest man whose only enemies are those he has made through his attachment to [a cause]?
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[One must] reject with the utmost contempt the weapons we are offered against our adversaries.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
You are a true person, and therefore disposed to take others as such.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If [someone] wants revenge, there is money and information at their service; they are an honest person, we know it; they only have to say the word.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I will know how to get out of my quarrel [...] without anyone's help.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I have no money, but I have no use for it.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
As for the memoirs offered to me, I can only make use of them after having very seriously examined them.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[I feel] the deepest respect and all the veneration owed to superior people.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I believe that the illusions of love come from the arbitrariness of the forms that constitute beauty. The more determined the ideas of beauty are, the weaker these illusions become.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
We reason about their flaws as we do about those of a great man; if they were not jealous, mad, vain, capricious, they would not be this genius.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
An injury is aggravated by memory beyond its effect at the moment it is experienced; we persuade ourselves that we were not angry enough, and we become too angry.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
Why are we more susceptible to pain than to pleasure [...]? It is because pain agitates the strands of the bundle in a violent and destructive manner [...].
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
What idea can one have of a pain one has not experienced? What idea of a pain remains when it has passed?
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
I am happy, everything around me becomes beautiful. I suffer, everything around me darkens. But this phenomenon only occurs in moderate pleasures or pains.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
Reason has this in common with madness [...] that the sane man does not take what happens in his head for the world's stage, and the madman is mistaken.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
Upon emerging from a deep sleep or a strong meditation, one does not know what one is. It is the memory of past things that returns us to ourselves.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
There is much affinity between dreams, delirium, and madness. He who would persist in one of the first two would be mad.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
Imagination is the source of happiness that is not yet and the poison of the happiness that follows. It is a faculty that exaggerates and deceives.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
The imaginative man walks in his head like a curious person in a palace where his steps are constantly diverted by interesting objects; he comes and goes, he never leaves it.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
I am inclined to believe that everything we have seen, known, perceived, heard [...] all of it exists within us without our knowledge.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
[The brain is] a book, but where is the reader? The reader? It is the book itself, for this book is sentient, living, and speaking.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
If one sees the thing as it is in nature, one is a philosopher. If one forms the object from a choice of scattered parts [...], one is a poet.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
Nothing is more contrary than rest to the nature of a living, animated, and sensitive being. Fix the organs in inaction, and you will produce boredom.
1774
Source: Elements of Physiology
If we are deprived of the sweetness of caressing our wives, what will console us for the harshness of our masters?
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
When one flees from a lover, it is not the slowness of the postilions one complains about.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
[...] love does not hold up against absence.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
Unhappy with one or the other, what does it matter? It matters a great deal that it be her fault and not yours.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
With all our flaws we govern men [...] You have reason, and we have charms.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
We do not love each other, but we embrace.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
The role of the supplicant hardly suits me, and that of gentleness does not last long with me.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
What a pity one cannot do without them!
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
The rule, my friend; the rule is the queen of the world.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
One makes plans, just as one shifts in one's chair when poorly seated.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
Love, love is a fool.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
Sir, love is stronger than hell.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
For twenty years, I have been walking between the complaints of my friends and my own remorse...
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
Me, a good man, as they say! I am not. I was born fundamentally hard, wicked, perverse.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
Fools were created for the amusement of the wise; one must laugh at them.
1775-1784
Source: Is he good? Is he bad?
If you want priests, you do not want philosophers, and if you want philosophers, you do not want priests.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
The ones being by their station the friends of reason and promoters of science, and the others the enemies of reason and patrons of ignorance.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
Wealth is harmful to philosophy.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
Who will want to enter a state where there is neither honor to be gained nor fortune to be made?
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
[...] you would shake the foundations of property, without which there are no longer kings nor subjects, there is only a tyrant and slaves.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
Religion is a creeping and hardy plant that never perishes; it only changes its form.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
[The religion] that will result from poverty [...] will be the least inconvenient, the least sad, the most peaceful, and the most innocent.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
A king is nothing [...] where someone can command in his empire in the name of a being recognized as the king's master.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
One can more easily do without masses and sermons than without shoes.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
The most dangerous of philosophers is the one who shows the monarch the immense sums that [certain groups] cost his States.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
A salaried priest is but a pusillanimous man who fears being dismissed and ruined.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
The man who holds his livelihood from your benefactions no longer has courage and dares nothing great or bold.
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
Since you have the secret to silence the philosopher, why do you not use it to silence the priest?
1774
Source: A Philosopher's Discourse to a King
The fools, the envious, and the bigots must have risen up against his principles; and that is a great many people...
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
He recognizes no difference between man and beast, other than that of organization.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
If a man reasons poorly, it is because he lacks the data to reason better. He has not considered the object from all its angles.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
The general interest is the measure of the esteem in which we hold the mind, not the difficulty of the subject or the extent of the insights.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
It is [...] the general and particular interest that transforms the idea of just and unjust; but its essence is independent of it.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Wherever in the world one may be, he who gives drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry is a good man.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
A slight alteration in the brain reduces the man of genius to a state of imbecility.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
We have failed to see the insurmountable barrier that separates the man whom nature has destined for some function, from the man who brings to it only work, interest, and passion...
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Physical pleasure is the ultimate object that they [the passions] propose for themselves; which I believe to be false.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
A paradoxical author must never state his point, but always his proofs: he must enter the reader's soul stealthily, and not by brute force.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
The apparatus of method resembles the scaffolding that one would leave [...] standing after the building is raised.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
The spirit of invention stirs [...] in an unregulated manner; it seeks. The spirit of method arranges, orders, and supposes that everything has been found...
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Ten years earlier, this work would have been entirely new; but today the philosophical spirit has made so much progress that one finds few new things in it...
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
There is nothing that so loves the unkempt and the disheveled as the thing imagined.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
All things considered, it is a furious club blow struck against prejudices of all kinds. This work will therefore be useful to mankind.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Under any government whatsoever, nature has set limits to the misfortune of peoples. Beyond these limits, there is either death, or flight, or revolt.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
One day it was asked how to restore morals to a corrupt people. I answered: As Medea restored youth to her father, by dismembering him and boiling him.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
You cannot give a nose to a greyhound, you cannot give the speed of a greyhound to a setter; no matter what you do, the latter will keep its nose, and the former will keep its legs.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Man is always born ignorant, very often foolish; and when he is not, nothing is easier than to make him so [...].
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Stupidity and genius occupy the two ends of the scale of the human mind. It is impossible to displace stupidity; it is easy to displace genius.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Let me be permitted to feel a man out, and I will soon discern what he owes to application and what he owes to nature.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
If the mind has burdened itself with the weight of a learned ignorance, it no longer rises to the truth; it has lost the tendency that carried it there.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
If each individual could create a language analogous to what he is, there would be as many languages as individuals [...].
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
There are certain childhood actions in which a man's entire destiny is written.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Is your child voluptuous? Make him hunt all day, and in the evening, make him drink a decoction of water lily; that will be worth more than a chapter of Seneca.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
How many men have died; and how many others will die without having shown what they were! I would gladly compare them to superb paintings hidden in a dark gallery [...].
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Let us be circumspect in our contempt; it could easily fall upon a man who is better than us.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
It is in the eternal order of things that the monster called a man of genius is always infinitely rare, and that the man of wit and sense is never common.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
I know only one single way to overthrow a cult, and that is to make its ministers despicable through their vices and their poverty.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
He who truly sees honor sees nothing beyond it.
1773
Source: Refutation of Helvétius
Architecture, born in the forests of the Druids, from the imitation of trees.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Merchants, a useful class of men, who were never honored among the Romans.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Without the Estates-General, there is not, properly speaking, a nation.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Laws should bind sovereigns as much as subjects.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
It is up to the philosophers and the wise of the earth to enlighten their fellow citizens.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
In ancient times, the nobility of one who disguised the truth from the king was revoked: is it because subjects no longer dared to speak it, or because [kings] no longer wished to hear it, that this custom has ceased?
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[China] is, of all the earth, the most populated and most corrupt country.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
In all religions, women have influenced worship.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[In Rome...] they crowned the poets, they persecuted the philosophers.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Intolerance in matters of religion was born in the bosom of Christianity.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Montesquieu claims that slavery owes its abolition to the Christian religion; this assertion is refuted.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The Chinese are attached to laws only inasmuch as they create their happiness.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Nobility is not hereditary in China, but a personal reward.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Perhaps it was in India, where the seasons of storms and fair weather are separated only by a mountain range, that the dogma of the two principles was born.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Patriotism is annihilated in Holland.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
It is naturalness without any artifice, it is the most vigorous eloquence without a shadow of effort or rhetoric.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
How many opportunities for grandiloquence that one never refuses without the greatest and most exquisite taste!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One must be an angel in matters of taste to feel the merit of such simplicity.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I could not bear to hear people say coldly, with a little air of indulgent satisfaction: Yes, that is natural...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Do you believe one deserves such works when one speaks of them in this way?
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
That is true taste, that is domestic truth, [...] that is comedy.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Either [a work] is false, or it is true. If it is false, it is detestable. If it is true, how many detestable things there are on our stages that pass for sublime!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I must be an honest man, for I keenly feel all the merit of this work.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There is no one in the world to whom [a work] should do more harm than to me, for this man cuts the grass from under my feet.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[Their] judgment will become for me the rule and measure of the taste they possess.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There was no example of so much strength and truth, of simplicity and finesse.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I feel well, I judge well, and time always ends up adopting my taste and my opinion.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is I who anticipate the future, and who know its thought.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
This conformity of seeing and feeling binds me to you in a delightful way.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
"I went to bed the calmest and happiest of fathers, and here I am now!"
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Physical and mathematical proof must take precedence over moral proof, just as the latter must outweigh historical proof. Stray from this, and you are sure of nothing.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Once it was accepted that the testimony of men should prevail over the testimony of reason, the door was opened to all absurdities.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Is the voice of my conscience not enough? It is there that God speaks to me far more reliably than through the mouths of others.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Why add ridiculous fictions to the eternal truths God teaches us through our reason? [...] by being unable to believe everything, one finally comes to believe nothing.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[Regarding the soul:] I do not speak of what I cannot know.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Evil exists; and it is a necessary consequence of the general laws of nature, and not the effect of a ridiculous apple.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
What are the duties of man? To make himself happy. From which derives the necessity of contributing to the happiness of others, or, in other words, of being virtuous.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Humility is a lie; where is the one who despises himself? [...] One must esteem oneself to be estimable.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
One is not guilty for being in error, but for betraying the truth.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Truth is endlessly confused in history with error [...] reason is the crucible that separates them.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Doubtless there are things superior to our reason; but I will boldly reject everything that is repugnant to it, everything that shocks it.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Passions always inspire us well, since they only inspire in us the desire for happiness; it is the mind that leads us astray.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Evil is inherent in good itself; one could not remove one without the other; and they both have their source in the same causes.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Whether one embraces celibacy out of taste or misguided zeal, society loses no less for it.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Justice can be nothing other than the observance of laws.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
There is as great a distance from Philosophy to Impiety as from Religion to Fanaticism; but from Fanaticism to Barbarism, there is only one step.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
[...] as if it were necessary to cease being human to show oneself as religious!
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
The science of morals was the main part of the Philosophy of the Ancients; in this [...], they were much wiser than we are.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Man is upright or virtuous when, without any base and servile motive [...], he compels all his passions to conspire for the general good of his species.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
In general, no matter how much we are assured that a man is full of zeal for his Religion; if we have to deal with him, we still inquire about his character.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
What is a man's opinion? The one that is habitual to him; it is the hypothesis to which he always returns, and not the one from which he has never departed.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Whatever advantage one has procured for Society, the motive alone makes the merit.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
You will only be good when you do good out of affection and from the heart.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
It would be a puerile affectation to deny that there is in moral Beings, as in corporeal objects, a true beauty, an essential beauty, a real sublime.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Nothing is as rare as a perfectly honest man, except perhaps a perfect scoundrel.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Zeal must in the long run supplant probity in one who professes in good faith a Religion whose precepts are opposed to the fundamental principles of Morality.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
He who wrongs a single person recognizes himself internally as being as odious to everyone as if he had offended them all.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
To suppose that Virtue is one of the natural evils of the Creature, & that Vice constantly constitutes its well-being, is this not to accuse the order of the Universe [...] of an essential flaw?
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
One cannot therefore attain moral perfection, arrive at the supreme degree of Virtue, without the knowledge of the true God.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Whatever it may be [...] that teaches them to persecute their fellow men [...]; let them refuse to obey, if they are virtuous, [...] to stifle the cries of Nature and the counsels of Virtue.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
We are so poor, so petty, so shabby, so neglected, so boring and so diffuse everywhere that it is pitiful.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[A certain] tone, which may be acceptable in a manuscript, is in the worst taste in a printed work.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When one writes off the cuff, everything that can be said on a subject either does not come to mind, or is not said as it should be said.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
You can entrust your own purse to whomever you want, but you do not hand over someone else's purse to anyone.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is not thought ill of a man to walk around his home in a dressing gown [...], but one must be decent [...] in public.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One must reread [a text], chastise it severely, add in all good faith what one can argue in one's favor, [and] what can be objected to.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One does not write as one hems, and ideas cannot be picked up again when they are cut, as one reties the ends of a thread.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If neither of us existed any longer, whoever came to possess it would use it as they pleased.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[A] work [...] belongs neither to [one author] nor to [the other], but to both, and cannot honestly be published without the consent of both.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If one thought that by letting a work leave one's hands one was disposing of another's property [...], one would be more circumspect.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
This work is neither his nor mine.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One would have cause to complain of the other if they published [a joint work] without their participation, [and vice versa].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
No, dear friend, nature did not make us wicked; it is bad education, bad examples, bad legislation that corrupt us.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One would have to either live alone or believe oneself constantly surrounded by wicked people; neither suits me.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
There is not a single country, not a single people, where the order of God has not consecrated some crime.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Ah, my friend! What a difference between reading history and hearing the man! Things become interesting in a very different way.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One is very proud, when telling a story, to be able to add: The one to whom this happened, I have seen him; it is from him that I have the story.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Is it better to be a liar than a fool? One can correct oneself of lying, but not of foolishness.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
In China, a good prince is one who conforms to the laws; a bad prince is one who breaks them. The law is on the throne. The prince is under the law.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
[...] wherever there was more glory in thinking than in doing, [...] the number of the idle, the proud, the useless, and the lazy was bound to increase.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
The productions of the mind are cold and dull when genius is not the organ of the passions, and then they are dangerous.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It is impossible to analyze the most delicate feelings without discovering a bit of filth in them.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
A father sacrifices his daughter for ambition, and he must not be odious. What a problem to solve!
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It is easier to suffer a great sorrow than to suffer a lifetime of small, endless mortifications.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Why is praise embarrassing? Because it is against the justice one owes oneself to refuse it [...], and against the modesty that is required to accept it [...].
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Lovers need retreat, rest, silence. The tumult of big cities tires no one as it does them.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
We would all be very ashamed if our parents had kept a record of all the harsh, even cruel, things we said or did when we were young.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
If a subject is found with the talent [...] to copy, equal, even surpass, [one must] train them, instruct them, and hide nothing of one's methods from them.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
To have nobility in one's soul, much gentleness, the purest morals; even an enlightenment rare among men.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When I speak of the rest of my nation, I mean the honest people, those who feel and who think.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Everyone has their weak side.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Adultery is certainly a great sin; but I would rather have committed it ten times than be drowned once.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is sweet for me to think that those who did everything to prevent me from doing a great and beautiful thing will nevertheless be proven wrong.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
These barbarians who call themselves civilized par excellence will gnash their teeth.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The beautiful and worthy revenge that I am allowed to glimpse!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I will work [...] as if they all belonged to me; and you can count on me not to waste a single obol of their patrimony.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[He] is not my protector, he is my friend of thirty-five years.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He is as tolerant as he can be.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If I do not do [this project] for you, I no longer want to hear of it, under any condition whatsoever.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Either you will have it as I conceive it, or it will remain to them as it is [...]. It is still too good for that rabble.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
They only need mediocre men and works.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Despite the modesty of one's fortune, it is with a sort of reluctance that one ventures a request.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When [...] you ask for an example, you are demanding [...] that body, form, and reality be given [...] to the successive sound of the accent.
1769, published 1830
Source: Conversation between d'Alembert and Diderot
It's not that there isn't perhaps something to correct and much to add to what I have said.
1769, published 1830
Source: Conversation between d'Alembert and Diderot
Do we understand one another? Are we understood?
1769, published 1830
Source: Conversation between d'Alembert and Diderot
Almost all conversations are settled accounts… One has no present idea in mind.
1769, published 1830
Source: Conversation between d'Alembert and Diderot
For the sole reason that no person perfectly resembles another, we never understand precisely, we are never precisely understood.
1769, published 1830
Source: Conversation between d'Alembert and Diderot
Our discourse is always short of or beyond sensation.
1769, published 1830
Source: Conversation between d'Alembert and Diderot
We perceive a great deal of diversity in judgments, but there is a thousand times more that we do not perceive, and which, fortunately, we cannot perceive.
1769, published 1830
Source: Conversation between d'Alembert and Diderot
[Virtue] is praised, but nothing is done for it.
1760
Source: The Nun
My soul easily ignites, gets exalted, is touched; but what does it mean when the calling is not there?
1760
Source: The Nun
I am tired of being a hypocrite; in doing what saves others, I detest and damn myself.
1760
Source: The Nun
I know of no true nuns except those who are kept here by their taste for retreat, and who would remain even if there were no bars or walls around them to hold them back.
1760
Source: The Nun
My body is here, but my heart is not; [...] if I had to choose between death and perpetual enclosure, I would not hesitate to die.
1760
Source: The Nun
One is only unhappy where God does not want us to be.
1760
Source: The Nun
Among all these [...] gentle creatures [...] there is hardly one [...] that could not be turned into a ferocious beast.
1760
Source: The Nun
The good nun is the one who brings some great fault to the cloister to atone for.
1760
Source: The Nun
A child is allowed to dispose of their freedom at an age when they are not allowed to dispose of a single coin.
1760
Source: The Nun
Rather kill your daughter than imprison her in a cloister against her will; yes, kill her.
1760
Source: The Nun
Are convents so essential to the constitution of a State? [...] and the human race of so many victims?
1760
Source: The Nun
To take a vow of obedience is to renounce the inalienable prerogative of man: liberty.
1760
Source: The Nun
Where is the abode of servitude and despotism? Where are the hatreds that never die? Where are the passions brooded in silence?
1760
Source: The Nun
How could one's mind withstand the persecution of fifty people who busy themselves from the beginning of the day to its end with tormenting you?
1760
Source: The Nun
To spend one's whole life beating one's head against the bars of one's prison!
1760
Source: The Nun
This is the effect [...] that the arts must produce, or not meddle with them at all.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I very much fear that the taste I have acquired for solitude may be more lasting than I thought.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Without infidelity, without discontent [...], the tender and passionate feeling degenerated [...] into a very true friendship and a solid attachment [...]. But there is no more, no more love.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I know not what I want, nor what I would want. I know not what I am nor what I will be.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
You do not think that sixty leagues from you there is a man who loves you, and who is conversing with you while everything around him sleeps.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I would like to go out, and I feel that wherever I might go, I would carry and find boredom there.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It is truly sad to have become attached to a creature to whom one can never [...] have the slightest reproach to make; to have neither the courage to fail her, nor the slightest hope that she will fail us.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Love! It is a cruel and savage beast.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Occupations follow one another without interruption, and I am beginning to be disillusioned with the chimera of rest.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I do well not to make access to my heart easy; once someone has entered, they do not leave without tearing it; it is a wound that never truly cauterizes.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It is because good style comes from the heart; that is why so many women speak and write like angels [...], and why so many pedants will speak and write badly all their lives.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
It seems to me that, from all eternity, reason was made to be trampled underfoot by love.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Nothing is more common than to mistake one's head for one's heart.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
The ancients, who knew that richness is the enemy of the sublime, would have stuck to [...].
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
[Friendship], I depict it as the most unbearable of tyrannies, as the torment of life.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
The Philosophical Thoughts were composed, it is said, from Good Friday to Easter Monday in 1746.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
The 50 louis that they brought the author were intended for [...] Madame de Puisieux who [...] powerfully stimulated Diderot's creative verve.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
A decree of the Parliament, dated July 7, 1746, condemned the small volume to be burned.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
It is known that these condemnations were usually carried out in effigy and that worthless old papers were burned instead of the book itself.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
[The frontispiece depicts] Truth removing her mask from Superstition [...] holding her broken scepter in one hand, while her crown rolls on the ground.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
The work had a great impact.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
[In one pamphlet], the work is attributed to La Mettrie, who denied it.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
[The work is] depicted as 'dangerous and seductive'.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
I conclude by pitying the author of the Philosophical Thoughts for the time he wasted compiling them...
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
I would wish that this half-baked philosopher would deign to read with all the attention of which I do not believe him entirely incapable...
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
Which proves that [the critic] somewhat exaggerated the power of his own dialectic.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
Diderot is not yet here [...] purged of all superstitious matter.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
He is still a deist; he only takes care to distinguish between his God and that of the devout.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
[He had] adopted the habit of not deciding for himself, letting the reader slide to the side where his inclination led him, after having shown him both paths.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
[The work contains] a profession of Catholic faith that should have made the judges who condemned the work reflect, but which was not enough to disarm them.
1746
Source: Philosophical Thoughts
All the dishes seemed to me covered with the substance of the poor, and everything around us flooded with their tears… and you want me to laugh?
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
The appearance of ridicule strikes them, and there you have a man judged.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
So, one absolutely must laugh? You have hurt an honest man [...] and you have lost an opportunity to pay homage to true merit.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
Misplaced or thoughtless laughter [...] comes [...] from a vice of the heart.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
A man who has come to make a game of torment and even of his own life, will he be much concerned with the happiness and preservation of his fellow men?
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
Do you know that laughter is the touchstone of taste, of justice, and of goodness?
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
It is always the idea of a flaw that excites laughter in us; a flaw in the ideas, in the expression, or in the person who is acting [...].
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
The idea of harmfulness stops laughter.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
People accustomed to reflecting must laugh less than others. A philosopher, a judge, a magistrate rarely laughs.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
[A thoughtful man] perceives at a glance a host of serious consequences in things that seem very indifferent to the common man.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
When the harmful does not outweigh the flaw, it makes one laugh; but if [the thing] is severe or dangerous, it will make no one laugh.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
How is it, then, that the wicked man never laughs?
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
The harmful is always the main and permanent idea of the wicked man; he is [...] occupied with causing harm, [and] he must [...] work to foresee and fend off vengeance [...].
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
To be accessible to laughter, the soul must be in a state of calm and equality; and the wicked man is perpetually in action and at war with himself and with others.
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
Does one tear up a painting by Raphael [...] because one discovers a small flaw [...]? Does this incorrectness deserve to occupy for a moment a man touched by the beauty of the masterpiece?
1740s
Source: Cinqmars and Derville
The delivery of a piece [...] is the image and expression of the genius who composed it: it commands my voice, it dictates my accents, it weakens them, it swells them [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Never [...] is one tempted to raise one's tone, to lower it, to get carried away [...] because the orator is never beside himself.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I will not erase your praise [...] because I love to praise; but I shall take great care not to be of your opinion.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[The orator] has rhythm in his style, clarity [...] but he is not eloquent and never will be.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He is a cold head; he has thoughts, he has an ear, but no guts, no soul.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It flows, but it does not boil; it does not tear away its bank, nor carry with it the trees, nor the men, nor their dwellings.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It does not disturb, does not strike down, does not overturn, does not confound; it leaves me as tranquil as itself.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It awakens no passion, neither contempt, nor hatred, nor indignation, nor pity [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
This man knows how to think and write; but [...] he feels nothing and experiences not the slightest torment.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
For God's sake, my friend, leave the poets and orators to me: that is my business.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Fanaticism, that dark fury lit in the soul of man by the torch of hell, which sends him wandering with wild eyes, dagger in hand [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Doubtless, one must be truthful in both praise and history; but, whether historian or orator, one must be neither monotonous nor cold.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[The orator] has rhythm, eloquence, style, reason, wisdom; but nothing beats for him beneath his left breast.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Nature does nothing incorrectly. Every form, beautiful or ugly, has its cause; and of all the beings that exist, there is not one that is not as it should be.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
We say of a man passing in the street that he is ill-made. Yes, according to our poor rules; but according to nature, it is another matter.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
A young man full of taste [...] would get on his knees and say: 'My God, deliver me from the model.'
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
An attitude is one thing, an action is another. Every attitude is false and small; every action is beautiful and true.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
Seek out public scenes; be observers in the streets, in the gardens, in the markets, in the houses, and there you will get true ideas of the real movement in the actions of life.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
There would be no mannerism, either in drawing or in color, if one scrupulously imitated nature. Mannerism comes from the master, from the academy, from the school [...].
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
It is drawing that gives form to beings; it is color that gives them life. That is the divine breath which animates them.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
He who has a keen sense of color [...] his palette is the image of chaos. It is into this chaos that he dips his brush; and from it he draws the work of creation.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
It seems we consider nature as the result of art; and, conversely, [...] it seems we regard the effect of art as that of nature.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
The mixture of allegorical and real beings gives history the air of a fairy tale.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
The imitative arts require something wild, raw, striking, and enormous.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
Move me, astonish me, break my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder, outrage me first; you can feast my eyes afterwards if you can.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
To make virtue lovable, vice hateful, the ridiculous salient, that is the project of every honest person who takes up the pen, the brush, or the chisel.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
A composition [...] will be flawed if it is not intelligible to a person of plain common sense.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
Above all, do not mistake it for that of the actor or the dancing master. The grace of action and the grace of [the dance master] Marcel are in exact contradiction.
1766
Source: Essay on Painting
...there is nothing good that does not have some disadvantage, not even virtue; nothing bad that does not have some advantage, not even crime...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Good judgment consists in weighing and clearly rejecting as bad that which is more bad than good.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The thread of truth emerges from darkness and ends in darkness. Along its length there is a point, the most luminous of all, where one must know to stop...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I am in no way a tyrant of opinions, I state my reasons and I wait; I have noticed [...] that my adversary and I have both changed our minds.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
What will I say when I see [...] a work in favor of the Christian religion? I will say that you have made the greatest possible abuse of the mind.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[This religion is] the most absurd and atrocious in its dogmas; the most unintelligible, the most metaphysical, the most convoluted and consequently the most subject to divisions...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Since it is necessary for man, superstitious by nature, to have a fetish, the simplest and most innocent fetish will be the best of all.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The only way to remove the frightful danger from diverse opinions is to tolerate them all without any exception, and to discredit them through one another...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One is naturally led to believe that those who listen to us attach even less importance to it than we do.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
My friend, I believe that Love is a savage and cruel master.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
What displeases me is this state, half reason and half madness; it is its incompatibility with happiness.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I would have found only one remedy when I was young: it was to admit the thing as it was, and to confess all my extravagance to myself...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I thought like a wise man and acted like a fool. But I was not unaware of it...
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
You are right; but your reason drives me to despair and your madness would bring me so much pleasure.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Love me as I love you, and you will love me a great deal.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Sorrow and pain, upon leaving a soul where they had dwelt too long, had left sadness behind.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
As life advances, we escape the wickedness that follows us.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Would not a work that [...] transmitted our own ideas, our true feelings [...] be worth more than family portraits, which show of us but a moment of our face?
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Bizarre behaviors are rarely sensible.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Reason makes itself heard intermittently. The persistent heart speaks ceaselessly.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
How happy a woman is [...] when the only way she has to attach the one she has chosen is to continually raise herself in her own eyes.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
[The soul...] is like the crystal of a pure wave [...]. If a falling leaf happens to stir its surface, all objects become unsteady.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Such is the august privilege of virtue; it commands respect from all who approach it.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Sad mortals, miserable playthings of events! Be very proud of your happiness, of your virtue!
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Virtue, what are you if you demand no sacrifice? Friendship, you are but an empty name, if you impose no laws.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
The good man is in society, and [...] only the wicked is alone.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
The effect of virtue on our soul is no less necessary, nor less powerful, than that of beauty on our senses.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Woe to him who has not sacrificed enough to virtue to prefer it to all else, to live, to breathe only for it.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Birth is given to us; but our virtues are our own.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
To be wicked is to condemn oneself to live, to take pleasure with the wicked; it is to wish to remain lost in a crowd of beings without principles, without morals, and without character.
1757
Source: The Natural Son, or the Trials of Virtue
Passionate critics always end up being wrong in the face of cold critics.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
[Cold critics], seeing things a little smaller than they are, never imagine that, without hallucination, one can see them a little larger.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
However, enthusiasm will always be a kind of virtue.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
We are cured [of enthusiasm], but let us beware, for it is a cure from which one dies.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
Ah! This enthusiasm [...] for the true, the beautiful, and the good, how I would love to see it in our generation!
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
[These reflections] bear the character of a strong imagination and a very sensitive heart.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
[These writings] could only have been born in those moments of enthusiasm, where a tender soul [...] yields to the pressing need to pour out the feelings by which it is [...] oppressed.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
Such a situation, undoubtedly, does not admit the cold and austere processes of method.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
[The author] lets his pen wander at the whim of his imagination.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
I have drawn lines, without connection, without design, and without order, as they were inspired in me in the tumult of my heart.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
Through the disorder and the charming negligence of a brush that lets itself go, one easily recognizes the sure and skillful hand of a great painter.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
Cruel envy pursues the man of merit to the edge of his grave; there, [it] disappears and gives way to the justice of the ages.
1762
Source: In Praise of Richardson
Mrs. Diderot is one of the few women who do not know how to suffer.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
it seemed to me that six weeks was shorter than a month and a half.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I only fear that the wine will not keep. But there is a remedy, which is to drink it faster.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
A monopoly [...] cannot harm, unless authority is joined to it.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
it is said that if [a woman] lacks anything, it is not finesse, a compliment that can be paid to almost all women.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
A man like any other is a naked priest.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Be so kind as to restore my common sense: I still need it sometimes.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Ah! if I can once stop loving you [...], I will love no one else: it hurts too much.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
there was no need for weapons when one had no desire to fight.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One must have principles, or not.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
A little debauchery now and then does no harm.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Goodness finds a thousand obstacles in large cities, where there is always a multitude of men interested in perpetuating evil.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
I am always astonished when I see someone coming out of church.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
One must often give wisdom the air of madness, in order to gain it entry.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
There was no virtue that did not have two rewards: the pleasure of doing good, and that of obtaining the goodwill of others.
1759-1774
Source: Letters to Sophie Volland
Love me, for it is dreadful to be loved by no one.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Oh, what a foolish thing life is! [...] if eloquence and virtue still had any power over us.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One causes another to perish [...] by pinpricks; life is spent in sulking, in quarrels, in reconciliations followed by new quarrels.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Everyone has their own way of feeling, this is mine.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I cannot stand these [...] scales [...] where the actions of others weigh like lead, and our own are as light as feathers.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] it is that when one discovers that one is neither worse nor better than others, one must quietly lower one's head [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I thought I was something; but I discovered that I was just a plain fellow, like any other.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Every century has its own spirit that characterizes it. The spirit of ours seems to be that of liberty.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
As soon as [men] have turned threatening glances against the majesty of heaven, they will not fail [...] to direct them against the sovereignty of the earth.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The cable that holds and compresses humanity is made of two ropes; one cannot give way without the other breaking.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
We are on the verge of a crisis that will end in either slavery or freedom [...].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is a thousand times easier [...] for an enlightened people to return to barbarism than for a barbarous people to advance a single step towards civilization.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The author and the publisher are in a game for two: if the latter pays what he wishes, in return he does not know what he is buying.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There are only three things in this world that can truly make a man contemptible: an ardent love of riches, of honors, and of life.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
General, one must be dead to obtain justice from the living, that is unfortunate; but as all distinguished men have suffered this fate, you will be so good as to submit to it.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When a ferocious beast has dipped its tongue in human blood, it can no longer do without it.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
An honest man can in twenty-four hours lose [...] his liberty, because tyrants are fearful; his life, because they count a citizen's life for nothing.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[Tyrants] seek to escape contempt through acts of terror.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
They blame us for their disorder, because we are the only ones in a position to notice their foolishness.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Nothing will be achieved as long as we only burn books.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Good people and enlightened men are and must be unbearable to them.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
What am I to do with my existence, if I can only preserve it by renouncing everything that makes it dear to me?
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I wake up every morning with the hope that the wicked have mended their ways during the night.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is the folly of a beautiful soul that cannot long believe in wickedness.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Society presents such a tranquil appearance that the soul, tired of tormenting itself, yields to a security that is treacherous, in truth, but almost impossible to resist.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The innocence and obscurity of one's life are two [...] very seductive sophisms.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Thus one is alternately the dupe of one's modesty and one's pride.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If we do not join you in crushing the beast, it is because we are under its claw.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[It is] for reasons whose prestige is all the stronger the more honest and sensitive one's soul is.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Our surroundings are so sweet, and it is such a difficult loss to repair!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The particular interest of the Creature is inseparable from the general interest of its species; [...] its true happiness consists in Virtue, and Vice cannot fail to bring about its misfortune.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Sorrow, impatience & ill-humor [...] this is a habitual state to which every unsociable character does not fail to settle.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
One imagines that misery is not always proportionate to iniquity; as if complete wickedness could lead to the greatest misery [...] without its lesser degrees sharing this punishment.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
The mind has, so to speak, its parts, and its parts have their proportions. [...] Few people, however, have occupied themselves with dissecting the soul, and it is an art that no one is ashamed of ignoring completely.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Every day one says: 'So-and-so has done a vile thing; but is he any less happy?' [...] One also says: 'That man is his own executioner.'
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Even Religion, considered as a passion, [...] can be pushed too far, and by its excess disturb the whole economy of social inclinations.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Affections are in the animal constitution what strings are on a musical instrument. [...] if the tension is too great, the instrument is badly set up, and its harmony is extinguished.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
With the help of Religion and under the authority of laws, man lives in a way less in conformity with his nature than do [...] Bees and Ants.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
I would dare to assert that it is almost impossible to find on earth a society of men who govern themselves by humane principles.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
The slightest cloud of the mind, the lightest sorrow, a small setback, poison & annihilate the pleasures of the body [...].
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Virtue does not appear in all its splendor except in the storm & under the cloud; social affections do not show their full worth except in great afflictions.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
What Brigand, what highway Robber [...] does not have a companion, a society of people of his kind [...] whose successes rejoice him, with whom he shares his prosperities?
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
To fear a God is not for that reason to have a Conscience. [...] To fear a God, without being or feeling guilty [...] is to fear a Devil and not a God.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
The more one has false principles of honor & Religion, the more one will be dissatisfied with oneself, and consequently the more miserable one will be.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
The health of the soul requires [...] exercises that are proper and necessary to it: if you deprive it of them, it grows heavy and goes out of order.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
When one has embraced a certain station in life, one must know how to endure its displeasures.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is impossible to conceive a high opinion of the talent of a dishonest man.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He is dishonest who publicly slanders, and who devotes [...] good citizens to general hatred.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I would be more ashamed of one flaw that I actually have than of a hundred vices I do not have, and for which I would be unjustly reproached.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I would have smiled at all these insults [...] and would have regarded them as pinpricks more painful in the long run for the author than for me.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[The attacker] believes he has only sharpened a double-edged sword: he is mistaken, there are three; and the edge that cuts on his side will wound him more grievously than he thinks.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The moral [...] is that one must close one's door to any witty man without principles and without probity.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If an author believes that a few happy verses are enough to sustain a work [...], he is still at the ABCs of the craft.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] all these characters seem to act only to prove that any idea of honesty is foreign to the author.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Nothing will remain for him but the ignominy of having made tirades against good people.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Satire should at least be cheerful; but this one is sad, and the author does not know the secret of harming successfully.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I pity this man for tearing down those whose advice might have taught him to make better use of his talent.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Posterity, which is always just, must not cast upon you a small portion of the blame that should rest entirely on [the guilty].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Philosophers are nothing today, but they will have their turn; people will speak of them, the history of the persecutions they endured will be told.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Why [...] should [scoundrels] be allowed to associate you with their crimes?
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When one is king, one has more than one matter to attend to.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
[There are] jealous neighbors, [...] surly people, plots to prevent.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
My word, I believe one hardly has any fun when one is king.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
One does everything without suspecting a thing, when one is king.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
I had truthful courtiers.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
While sleeping, I accomplished heroic feats.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
Truly, I made laws; I even made them in verse.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
In bad verse; who tells you otherwise?
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
For the price of one's sincerity, [...] one can lose one's liberty.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
One can grant this reward to good people, when one is king.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
As for me, I did nothing of the sort; for I am good-natured.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
A king's verse and prose are usually bad.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
[It is] the least [sin] one can commit, when one is king.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
Destiny made us to be born, me to serve, you to lay down the law.
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
Who wants a king who is looking for a master?
1819
Source: Complaint in rondo of Denis, king of the bean, on the embarrassments of royalty
if the play has survived in the theater, it is because there is at least always movement, although this movement is false.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
I see the success [...] as a victory won by virtue and as an honorable amend made by the public for having tolerated the infamous satire.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
[It is] always a kind of rampart against fanatics and scoundrels.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
routine is very powerful in our country, and, as we know, innovators do not have an easy time of it.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
The situations of domestic drama [...] can hardly deviate from the truth of nature without most spectators noticing; from then on, all the illusion of the stage is lost for them.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
If [the situations] are too exactly true, [...] one only sees what one has seen too much of in the ordinary course of life.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
Diderot's theater [...] has had, it seems to me, much more influence on German literature than on French literature.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
The views and principles it contains had [...] much more analogy with the Germanic spirit and customs than with the French spirit and character.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
In Paris, instead of sensing the importance of the attempt [...], people made, as always, jokes, good or bad.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
He is one of those unfortunate beings who exist in nature; but I would never have dared to put him on stage.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
You know, sir, [...] what it is to be a man wounded in his most delicate part.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
This very pathetic drama produced the usual effect of wringing the heart and causing abundant tears. There were as many handkerchiefs as spectators.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
Its lack of success is further proof of our return to good taste and sound ideas. This drama has fallen along with the philosophy that had brought it into credit.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
forty years of declamation and pathos on sensitivity, humanity, and benevolence had only served to prepare hearts for the ultimate excesses of barbarism.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
Those who attended these performances still remember the effect produced by Firmin when he answered the Commander with the famous line: I have an income of fifteen hundred pounds.
1758
Source: The Father of the Family
There is in men of genius [...] a particular, secret, indefinable quality of soul, without which one accomplishes nothing very great and beautiful.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
I have seen beautiful and strong imaginations that promised much, and yet delivered nothing or very little.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
Nothing is more common than men of great judgment whose productions are slack, soft, and cold.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
Wit says pretty things and only does small ones.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
Passionate people stir a great deal to do nothing of worth.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
Taste erases faults rather than produces beauties; it is a gift that is acquired [...], it is not a spring of nature.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
The observant spirit I speak of exercises itself without effort [...]; it does not look, it sees; it learns, it expands without studying.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
[The observant spirit] has no present phenomenon in mind, but all have affected it, and what remains is a kind of sense that others do not have.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
[Genius is] a rare machine that says: this will succeed... and it succeeds; this will not succeed... and it does not succeed.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
This kind of prophetic spirit is not the same in all conditions of life; each state has its own.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
[Genius] does not always guarantee against falls, but the fall it occasions never brings contempt.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
The man of genius knows he is taking a chance, and he knows it without having calculated the odds for or against.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
[In the man of genius], this calculation is all done in his head.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
[Petty daily espionage] is a miserable little study [...] by which a servant deceives his master, and his master deceives those whose servant he is.
c. 1763
Source: On Genius
With a good and sensitive soul, [...] one will conceive the full strength of these kinds of bonds, and how much it must cost to break them.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[He] is driven by talent and the desire to immortalize himself through something great and beautiful.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is neither the thirst for gold, nor the ambition of a greater fortune that has determined him. He scorns gold [...], he has the fortune of the wise.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
He who did not know how to be happy with an income of two thousand would not be so with a hundred thousand.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The less an artist thinks of himself, the more he thinks of his workers.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[He] does not think it is any more permissible to rob a sovereign than a private individual, [...] when one deals with an honest man and a skilled man.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
In the fine arts, wealth is almost always the mortal enemy of the sublime.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is the first time I have seen a new idea so universally applauded, by people of the art, people of the world, the ignorant, and the connoisseurs alike.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Do not confuse [this] artist with the crowd of common artists. He is a man who has ideas, and who knows how to think for himself.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When [a competitor] is nearby [...], he will no longer need anyone. Let him be, and he will do great things.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Men do not do themselves this justice [of judging their own talent accurately].
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is natural that he should look upon the artist with a jealous eye, and upon the work with a critical eye.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[The artist], who will need all the tranquility of his mind, must not be bothered and distracted [...] by the buzzing and stinging of wasps.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
It is only at a certain age that one has no homeland and adopts a new one. It is in this interval that one weds a country.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The old man arrives, renders the services asked of him, [...] and returns home; the young man takes a wife, has children, and creates a family that stays.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
When I yield the credit for a good deed to another, it is always a sacrifice I make.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
After going into debt fifty times for vice, go into debt once for virtue.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
An act of benevolence [...] grows more beautiful every day.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
What I say to you for another, I would not blush to say it for myself.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The miser is the one who is afraid of having a poor friend.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
One word is enough to spoil the best of deeds.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I love you for your character; I esteem you for your mind and your talents; make it so that I revere you for your benevolence.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If you can, do.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Our situation is becoming quite unfortunate.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Judge [...] misery by the intensity of the solicitations.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I confide in you, in secret [...] that this artist is costing me more than two hundred louis.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Good day, Monsieur le Chevalier; I greet you and I embrace you.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Do you ever retract your statements? Well! Here is a fine occasion to do so.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
This translation [...] is one of the most difficult to do in any language, and one of the best done in ours.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The edition sold out in four months, and the second is in the works; say that as well, for it is true.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] it is not without rare merit that one makes a frivolous and cheerful people read jeremiads.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
The glory an author draws from his work is the portion of his fee that he values the most.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
To tarnish a man's reputation! To seal, as much as one can, the door of a merchant!
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Ah! Monsieur Grimm, Monsieur Grimm! your conscience has taken on a heavy burden.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
There is only one way to relieve it, which is to promptly render [...] the justice you owe.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
If you were to look into yourself tonight, [...] when all is silent around you, you will be able to hear the voice of your conscience in all its strength.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
You will feel that you are in a devilishly precarious line of work for a timorous soul.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
Cato Diderot had come during my absence and [...] had cast prying eyes on one of my previous sheets.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
I found on my table the following reprimand, of which my conscience does not permit me to suppress a single syllable.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
[...] I will even have it engraved on a bronze tablet to be hung in my shop to constantly remind me of the misery of my profession.
1741-1784
Source: Correspondence (Diderot)
We know that each Creature has a private Interest, a well-being of its own, towards which it strives with all its power.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
[...] if the same economy in its affections that qualifies it as good in relation to itself produced the same effect relative to its fellows, [...] it is in this sense that private interest can be reconciled with moral Virtue.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
If a Historian [...] were to describe to us a perfectly isolated Creature, [...] we would say without hesitation that this singular Creature must be plunged into a dreadful melancholy.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
If the evil of a particular system is for the good of another system, [...] this particular evil is not an absolute evil [...].
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
In a reasonable Creature, anything that is not done out of affection is neither bad nor good.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Any affection whose object is an imaginary good, [...] diminishing the energy of those that lead us to real goods, is vicious in itself.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Whatever advantage one may have brought to Society, the motive alone constitutes the merit.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
You will only be good when you do good out of affection and from the heart.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
[...] the most natural tenderness [...] has prescribed limits, beyond which it degenerates into vice.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
The understanding has its eyes: minds listen to each other; [...] in short, they have their own critic from whom nothing escapes.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
No moral Virtue, no merit, without [...] a reflective knowledge of what is morally good or bad, worthy of admiration or hatred [...].
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
An error of fact, not touching the affections, does not produce vice; but an error of right influences [...] one's natural affections, and cannot fail to make one vicious.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
If the temperament is fiery, choleric, amorous, and if the Creature, taming these passions, devotes itself to virtue, in spite of their efforts; [...] its merit is all the greater.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
Nothing is as rare as a perfectly honest man, except perhaps a perfect scoundrel.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
In the Universe, all is one. This truth was one of the first steps of Philosophy, and it was a giant leap.
1745
Source: Essay on Merit and Virtue
[...] credulous even to the point of superstition, as are more or less all uneducated men.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[There are] those men who modestly believe themselves to be the interpreters of the Divinity, and a means of union between it and weak mortals.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Rather than faithfully presenting [another's] doctrine, one finds only the inaccurate definitions and false ideas of an ignorant or bad-faith controversialist.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[The] true principles [...] exaggerated, carried to the extreme, in order to make both them and their proponents at once ridiculous and odious.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[The priest is a] kind of man one should have neither as a friend nor as an enemy.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
A very clever sophist [...] can give a bad cause some appearance of justice, and artfully mesmerize the eyes of a few biased or unenlightened judges.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[...] all his means of seduction have no effect on upright and penetrating minds.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[...] those wretched commonplaces with which, to the shame of human reason, the various schools of theology have resounded every day [...].
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Silence [...] at first seemed the wisest course to take in this rather delicate circumstance.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
The fear of compromising oneself [...] gave way to the desire to make truth triumph over the vain sophisms of a quibbler.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[A quibbler is one] who, out of foolishness or malice, confuses everything to obscure everything.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Whether [the adversary] indeed felt the full force of the blow [...], or rather, without being convinced, he at least judged it necessary to fight with other weapons.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Vanity hardly goes, even in its excesses, so far as to [...] extinguish in a man the feeling of his own weakness.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
[The man aware of his weakness] could no longer enter the arena without publicly exposing himself to a shameful defeat.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
The absurdity of this sad superstition [...] is demonstrated by the simple exposition of the facts and dogmas that serve as its foundations.
1763
Source: Introduction to the Grand Principles
Domestic animals of Europe have all degenerated in America with the exception of the pig.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The character of the Creoles comes in part from the influence of slavery on the soul of the Negroes from whom they originate.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Slavery, almost abolished in Europe, is reborn in America.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Slavery] was more or less established in all regions and in all centuries.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Slavery] formerly gave masters the right over the lives of their slaves [...]. It no longer gives it to them directly.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Slavery] is perhaps useless for the work of the plantations.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[Regarding slavery:] Kings must destroy it.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[The Europeans of the Isles] have transported there the customs, the manners, and the foods of Europe.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[The Dutch] were the first to bring to Europe, from the moment they were free, the advantages of commerce.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[The existence of the Dutch] is precarious.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[The Dutch] would be nothing without America.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The harshness of the work of the negresses prevents the multiplication of negroes in the colonies.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[The negresses] often suffocate their children out of despair.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
[The Negroes:] They only lack a leader to procure liberty for themselves and avenge America.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
Tobacco, the first product to be cultivated in America, but always negligently.
1770
Source: Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies