There's a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.
Denis DiderotWhat has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.
Denis DiderotThe first promise exchanged by two beings of flesh was at the foot of a rock that was crumbling into dust; they took as witness for their constancy a sky that is not the same for a single instant; everything changed in them and around them, and they believed their hearts free of vicissitudes. O children! always children!
Denis DiderotI discuss with myself questions of politics, love, taste, or philosophy. I let my mind rove wantonly, give it free rein to followany idea, wise or mad that may present itself. My ideas are my harlots.
Denis DiderotThe Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.
Denis DiderotYou live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortalsโฆ What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.
Denis Diderot