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 DiderotOh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.
Denis DiderotGentleness and peacefulness regulate our proceedings; theirs are dictated by fury. We employ reason, they accumulate faggots. They preach nothing but love, and breathe nothing but blood. Their words are humane, but their hearts are cruel.
Denis DiderotFirst move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes.
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