Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.
Denis DiderotDoctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.
Denis DiderotI 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 DiderotIt seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism.
Denis Diderot