Top 160 Denis Diderot Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

3. “Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others.”

— Denis Diderot

4. “Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

9. “You have to make it happen.”

— Denis Diderot

10. “Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.”

— Denis Diderot

11. “From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

13. “Fanaticism is just one step away from barbarism.”

— Denis Diderot

14. “Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

16. “There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.”

— Denis Diderot

17. “There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.”

— Denis Diderot

18. “The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.”

— Denis Diderot

19. “If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.”

— Denis Diderot

20. “First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.”

— Denis Diderot

21. “No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.”

— Denis Diderot

22. “Distance is a great promoter of admiration.”

— Denis Diderot

23. “Give, but, if possible, spare the poor man the shame of begging.”

— Denis Diderot

24. “All children are essentially criminal.”

— Denis Diderot

25. “There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

27. “Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

30. “Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.”

— Denis Diderot

31. “My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.”

— Denis Diderot

32. “There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

34. “To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly.”

— Denis Diderot

35. “When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man’s name live for thousands of years.”

— Denis Diderot

36. “The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

39. “I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.”

— Denis Diderot

40. “It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

42. “It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.”

— Denis Diderot

43. “Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.”

— Denis Diderot

44. “I give my mind the liberty to follow the first wise or foolish idea that presents itself, just as in the avenue de Foy our dissolute youths follow close on the heels of some strumpet, then leave her to pursue another, attacking all of them and attaching themselves to none. My thoughts are my strumpets.”

— Denis Diderot

45. “Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.”

— Denis Diderot

46. “What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.”

— Denis Diderot

47. “If you disturb the colors of the rainbow, the rainbow is no longer beautiful.”

— Denis Diderot

48. “Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.”

— Denis Diderot

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

— Denis Diderot

50. “I like better for one to say some foolish thing upon important matters than to be silent. That becomes the subject of discussion and dispute, and the truth is discovered.”

— Denis Diderot