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 DiderotI have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.
Denis DiderotIt has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.
Denis DiderotHow old the world is! I walk between two eternities.... What is my fleeting existence in comparison with that decaying rock, that valley digging its channel ever deeper, that forest that is tottering and those great masses above my head about to fall? I see the marble of tombs crumbling into dust; and yet I don't want to die!
Denis Diderot