Background Image

...

What Is This World? A Complex Whole, Subject To Endless Revolutions. All These Revolutions Show A Continual Tendency To Destruction; A Swift Succession Of Beings Who Follow One Another, Press Forward, And Vanish; A Fleeting Symmetry; The Order Of A Moment. I Reproached You Just Now With Estimating The Perfection Of Things By Your Own Capacity; And I Might Accuse You Here Of Measuring Its Duration By The Length Of Your Own Days.

-Denis Diderot

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

What Is This World?

Denis Diderot

...

What Is This World? A Complex Whole, Subject To Endless Revolutions. All These Revolutions Show A Continual Tendency To Destruction; A Swift Succession Of Beings Who Follow One Another, Press Forward, And Vanish; A Fleeting Symmetry; The Order Of A Moment. I Reproached You Just Now With Estimating The Perfection Of Things By Your Own Capacity; And I Might Accuse You Here Of Measuring Its Duration By The Length Of Your Own Days.

Views: 3

Topic

More From Denis Diderot

In Any Country Where Talent And Virtue Produce No Advancement, Money Will Be The National God. Its Inhabitants Will Either Have To Possess Money Or Make Others Believe That They Do. Wealth Will Be The Highest Virtue, Poverty The Greatest Vice.

There Is Only One Passion, The Passion For Happiness.

Does Anyone Really Know Where They're Going To?

We Are Constantly Railing Against The Passions; We Ascribe To Them All Of Man's Afflictions, And We Forget That They Are Also The Source Of All His Pleasures.

The Following General Definition Of An Animal: A System Of Different Organic Molecules That Have Combined With One Another, Under The Impulsion Of A Sensation Similar To An Obtuse And Muffled Sense Of Touch Given To Them By The Creator Of Matter As A Whole, Until Each One Of Them Has Found The Most Suitable Position For Its Shape And Comfort.

Morals Are In All Countries The Result Of Legislation And Government; They Are Not African Or Asian Or European: They Are Good Or Bad.

There Is Less Harm To Be Suffered In Being Mad Among Madmen Than In Being Sane All By Oneself.

You Have To Make It Happen.

Happiest Are The People Who Give Most Happiness To Others.

Le Public Ne Sait Pas Toujours De Sirer Le Vrai. Thepublicdoesnot Alwaysknowhow Todesirethetruth.

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.

The Infant Runs Toward It With Its Eyes Closed, The Adult Is Stationary, The Old Man Approaches It With His Back Turned.

Only The Bad Man Is Alone.

No Man Has Received From Nature The Right To Command His Fellow Human Beings.

Only A Very Bad Theologian Would Confuse The Certainty That Follows Revelation With The Truths That Are Revealed. They Are Entirely Different Things.

If The Weather Is Too Cold Or Rainy, I Take Shelter In The Regence Cafe, Where I Entertain Myself By Watching Chess Being Played. Paris Is The World Center, And This Cafe Is The Paris Centre For The Finest Skill At This Game.

Passions Destroy More Prejudices Than Philosophy Does.

Anyone Who Takes It Upon Himself, On His Private Authority, To Break A Bad Law, Thereby Authorizes Everyone Else To Break The Good Ones.

If Reason Be A Gift Of Heaven, And We Can Say As Much Of Faith, Heaven Has Certainly Made Us Two Gifts Not Only Incompatible, But In Direct Contradiction To Each Other. In Order To Solve The Difficulty, We Are Compelled To Say Either That Faith Is A Chimera Or That Reason Is Useless.

We Are A Free People; And Now You Have Planted In Our Country The Title Deeds Of Our Future Slavery. You Are Neither God Nor Demon; Who Are You, Then, To Make Slaves? Orou! You Understand The Language Of These Men, Tell Us All, As You Have Told Me, What They Have Written On This Sheet Of Metal: This Country Is Ours. This Country Yours? And Why? Because You Have Walked Thereon? If A Tahitian Landed One Day On Your Shores, And Scratched On One Of Your Rocks Or On The Bark Of Your Trees: This Country Belongs To The People Of Tahiti - What Would You Think?

I Am Wholly Yours - You Are Everything To Me; We Will Sustain Each Other In All The Ills Of Life It May Please Fate To Inflict Upon Us; You Will Soothe My Troubles; I Will Comfort You In Yours.

When Shall We See Poets Born? After A Time Of Disasters And Great Misfortunes, When Harrowed Nations Begin To Breathe Again. And Then, Shaken By The Terror Of Such Spectacles, Imaginations Will Paint Things Entirely Strange To Those Who Have Not Witnessed Them.

You Risk Just As Much In Being Credulous As In Being Suspicious.

The World Is The House Of The Strong. I Shall Not Know Until The End What I Have Lost Or Won In This Place, In This Vast Gambling Den Where I Have Spent More Than Sixty Years, Dice Box In Hand, Shaking The Dice.

Tous Les Jours On Couche Avec Des Femmes Qu'on N'aime Pas, Et L'on Ne Couche Pas Avec Des Femmes Qu'on Aime. Every Day We Sleep With Women We Do Not Love And Don't Sleep With The Women We Do Love.

En Ge Ne Ral, Plus Un Peuple Est Civilise , Poli, Moins Ses Moeurs Sont Poe Tiques; Tout S'affaiblit En S'adoucissant. Ingeneral, Themore Civilized And Refinedthepeople, The Less Poetic Are Its Morals; Everything Weakens As It Mellows.

All Abstract Sciences Are Nothing But The Study Of Relations Between Signs.

What A Hell Of An Economic System! Some Are Replete With Everything While Others, Whose Stomachs Are No Less Demanding, Whose Hunger Is Just As Recurrent, Have Nothing To Bite On. The Worst Of It Is The Constrained Posture Need Puts You In. The Needy Man Does Not Walk Like The Rest; He Skips, Slithers, Twists, Crawls.

Justice Is The First Virtue Of Those Who Command, And Stops The Complaints Of Those Who Obey.

The Possibility Of Divorce Renders Both Marriage Partners Stricter In Their Observance Of The Duties They Owe To Each Other. Divorces Help To Improve Morals And To Increase The Population.

The Fact Is That She Was Terribly Undressed And I Was Extremely Undressed Too. The Fact Is That I Still Had My Hand Where She Didn't Have Anything And She Had Hers Where The Same Wasn't Quite True Of Me. The Fact Is That I Found Myself Underneath Her And Consequently She Found Herself On Top Of Me.

Pithy Sentences Are Like Sharp Nails Which Force Truth Upon Our Memory.

What A Fine Comedy This World Would Be If One Did Not Play A Part In It.

The Blood Of Jesus Christ Can Cover A Multitude Of Sins, It Seems To Me.

My Ideas Are My Whores.

Whatever Dressing One Gives To Mushrooms, To Whatever Sauces Our Apiciuses Put Them, They Are Not Really Good But To Be Sent Back To The Dungheap Where They Are Born.

One Must Be Oneself Very Little Of A Philosopher Not To Feel That The Finest Privilege Of Our Reason Consists In Not Believing In Anything By The Impulsion Of A Blind And Mechanical Instinct, And That It Is To Dishonour Reason To Put It In Bonds As The Chaldeans Did. Man Is Born To Think For Himself.

To Prove The Gospels By A Miracle Is To Prove An Absurdity By Something Contrary To Nature.

Give, But, If Possible, Spare The Poor Man The Shame Of Begging.

He Whom We Call A Gentleman Is No Longer The Man Of Nature.

In General, Children, Like Men, And Men, Like Children, Prefer Entertainment To Education.

Which Is The Greater Merit, To Enlighten The Human Race, Which Remains Forever, Or To Save One's Fatherland, Which Is Perishable?

When We Know To Read Our Own Hearts, We Acquire Wisdom Of The Heartsof Others.

The Good Of The People Must Be The Great Purpose Of Government. By The Laws Of Nature And Of Reason, The Governors Are Invested With Power To That End. And The Greatest Good Of The People Is Liberty. It Is To The State What Health Is To The Individual.

First Move Me, Astonish Me, Break My Heart, Let Me Tremble, Weep, Stare, Be Enraged-only Then Regale My Eyes.

If Exclusive Privileges Were Not Granted, And If The Financial System Would Not Tend To Concentrate Wealth, There Would Be Few Great Fortunes And No Quick Wealth. When The Means Of Growing Rich Is Divided Between A Greater Number Of Citizens, Wealth Will Also Be More Evenly Distributed; Extreme Poverty And Extreme Wealth Would Be Also Rare.

Jacques Said That His Master Said That Everything Good Or Evil We Encounter Here Below Was Written On High.

Patriotism Is An Ephemeral Motive That Scarcely Ever Outlasts The Particular Threat To Society That Aroused It.

The Decisions Of Law Courts Should Never Be Printed: In The Long Run, They Form A Counter Authority To The Law.

We Are Far More Liable To Catch The Vices Than The Virtues Of Our Associates.

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.

We Swallow Greedily Any Lie That Flatters Us, But We Sip Only Little By Little At A Truth We Find Bitter.

Those Authors Into Whose Hands Nature Has Placed A Magic Wand, With Which They No Sooner Touch Us Than We Forget The Unhappiness In Life, Than The Darkness Leaves Our Soul, And We Are Reconciled To Existence, Should Be Placed Among The Benefactors Of The Human Race.

If A Misplaced Admiration Shows Imbecility, An Affected Criticism Shows Vice Of Character. Expose Thyself Rather To Appear A Beast Than False.

La Poe Sie Veutquelque Chose D'e Norme, Debarbare Et De Sauvage. Poetry Needs Something On The Scale Of The Grand, The Barbarous, The Savage.

A Thing Is Not Proved Because No One Has Ever Questioned It... Skepticism Is The First Step Toward Truth.

Only Passions, Great Passions, Can Elevate The Soul To Great Things.

All Things Must Be Examined, Debated, Investigated Without Exception And Without Regard For Anyone's Feelings... We Must Run Roughshod Over All These Ancient Puerilities, Overturn The Barriers That Reason Never Erected, Give Back To The Arts And Sciences The Liberty That Is So Precious To Them.

They Mistake The First Manifestations Of A Developing Sexual Nature For The Voice Of God Calling Them To Himself; And It Is Precisely When Nature Is Inciting Them That They Embrace A Fashion Of Life Contrary To Nature's Wish.

I 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.

Scepticism Is The First Step Toward Truth.

There Comes A Moment During Which Almost Every Girl Or Boy Falls Into Melancholy; They Are Tormented By A Vague Inquietude Which Rests On Everything And Finds Nothing To Calm It. They Seek Solitude; They Weep; The Silence To Be Found In Cloister Attracts Them: The Image Of Peace That Seems To Reign In Religious Houses Seduces Them. They Mistake The First Manifestations Of A Developing Sexual Nature For The Voice Of God Calling Them To Himself; And It Is Precisely When Nature Is Inciting Them That They Embrace A Fashion Of Life Contrary To Nature's Wish.

Time, Matter, Space - All, It May Be, Are No More Than A Point.

The Arbitrary Rule Of A Just And Enlightened Prince Is Always Bad. His Virtues Are The Most Dangerous And The Surest Form Of Seduction: They Lull A People Imperceptibly Into The Habit Of Loving, Respecting, And Serving His Successor, Whoever That Successor May Be, No Matter How Wicked Or Stupid.

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.

Our Observation Of Nature Must Be Diligent, Our Reflection Profound, And Our Experiments Exact. We Rarely See These Three Means Combined; And For This Reason, Creative Geniuses Are Not Common.

I Can Be Expected To Look For Truth But Not To Find It.

I Am More Affected By The Attractions Of Virtue Than By The Deformities Of Vice; I Turn Gently Away From The Wicked And I Fly To Meet The Good. If There Is In A Literary Work, In A Character, In A Picture, In A Statue, A Beautiful Spot, That Is Where My Eyes Rest; I See Only That, I Remember Only That, All The Rest Is Well-nigh Forgotten. What Becomes Of Me When The Whole Work Is Beautiful!

From Fanaticism To Barbarism Is Only One Step.

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.

Whether God Exists Or Does Not Exist, He Has Come To Rank Among The Most Sublime And Useless Truths.

Good Music Is Very Close To Primitive Language.

Those Who Fear The Facts Will Forever Try To Discredit The Fact-finders.

Ignorance Is Less Remote From The Truth Than Prejudice.

There Is No Good Father Who Would Want To Resemble Our Heavenly Father.

What Is This World? A Complex Whole, Subject To Endless Revolutions. All These Revolutions Show A Continual Tendency To Destruction; A Swift Succession Of Beings Who Follow One Another, Press Forward, And Vanish; A Fleeting Symmetry; The Order Of A Moment. I Reproached You Just Now With Estimating The Perfection Of Things By Your Own Capacity; And I Might Accuse You Here Of Measuring Its Duration By The Length Of Your Own Days.

There Is No Kind Of Harassment That A Man May Not Inflict On A Woman With Impunity In Civilized Societies.

Every Man Has His Dignity. I'm Willing To Forget Mine, But At My Own Discretion And Not When Someone Else Tells Me To.

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.

The Enjoyment Of Freedom Which Could Be Exercised Without Any Motivation Would Be The Real Hallmark Of A Maniac.

When Superstition Is Allowed To Perform The Task Of Old Age In Dulling The Human Temperament, We Can Say Goodbye To All Excellence In Poetry, In Painting, And In Music.

The World Is The House Of The Strong.

I Picture The Vast Realm Of The Sciences As An Immense Landscape Scattered With Patches Of Dark And Light. The Goal Towards Which We Must Work Is Either To Extend The Boundaries Of The Patches Of Light, Or To Increase Their Number. One Of These Tasks Falls To The Creative Genius; The Other Requires A Sort Of Sagacity Combined With Perfectionism.

The God Of The Christians Is A Father Who Makes Much Of His Apples, And Very Little Of His Children.

The Christian Religion Teaches Us To Imitate A God That Is Cruel, Insidious, Jealous, And Implacable In His Wrath.

Isn't It Better To Have Men Being Ungrateful Than To Miss A Chance To Do Good?

There's A Bit Of Testicle At The Bottom Of Our Most Sublime Feelings And Our Purest Tenderness.

There Are Three Principal Means Of Acquiring Knowledge... Observation Of Nature, Reflection, And Experimentation. Observation Collects Facts; Reflection Combines Them; Experimentation Verifies The Result Of That Combination.

It Is Not Human Nature We Should Accuse But The Despicable Conventions That Pervert It.

How 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!

I Have Not The Hope Of Being Immortal, Because The Desire Of It Has Not Given Me That Vanity.

There Is No Moral Precept That Does Not Have Something Inconvenient About It.

If You Want Me To Believe In God, You Must Make Me Touch Him.

Watch Out For The Fellow Who Talks About Putting Things In Order! Putting Things In Order Always Means Getting Other People Under Your Control.

It Is Said That Desire Is A Product Of The Will, But The Converse Is In Fact True: Will Is A Product Of Desire.

A Thing Is Not Proved Just Because No One Has Ever Questioned It. What Has Never Been Gone Into Impartially Has Never Been Properly Gone Into. Hence Scepticism Is The First Step Toward Truth. It Must Be Applied Generally, Because It Is The Touchstone.

Man Will Never Be Free Until The Last King Is Strangled With The Entrails Of The Last Priest.

Evil Always Turns Up In This World Through Some Genius Or Other.

This Root [the Potato], No Matter How Much You Prepare It, Is Tasteless And Floury. It Cannot Pass For An Agreeable Food, But It Supplies A Food Sufficiently Abundant And Sufficiently Healthy For Men Who Ask Only To Sustain Themselves. The Potato Is Criticized With Reason For Being Windy, But What Matters Windiness For The Vigorous Organisms Of Peasants And Laborers?

There Is Only One Duty; That Is To Be Happy.

I Feel, I Think, I Judge; Therefore, A Part Of Organized Matter Like Me Is Capable Of Feeling, Thinking, And Judging.

Mankind Have Banned The Divinity From Their Presence; They Have Relegated Him To A Sanctuary; The Walls Of The Temple Restrict His View; He Does Not Exist Outside Of It.

It Is Very Important Not To Mistake Hemlock For Parsley, But To Believe Or Not Believe In God Is Not Important At All.

If There Are One Hundred Thousand Damned Souls For One Saved Soul, The Devil Has Always The Advantage Without Having Given Up His Son To Death.

Une Danse Est Un Poe' Me. A Dance Is A Poem.

Gratitude Is A Burden, And Every Burden Is Made To Be Shaken Off.

Inspirational Christmas

Skepticism Is The First Step On The Road To Philosophy.

Fanaticism Is Just One Step Away From Barbarism.

Gaiety Is A Quality Of Ordinary Men. Genius Always Presupposes Some Disorder In The Machine.

The Bad Gives Rise To The Good, The Good Inspires The Better, The Better Produces The Excellent, The Excellent Is Followed By The Bizarre

The 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!

There Are Cats And Cats.

There Is Only One Virtue, Justice; Only One Duty, To Be Happy; Only One Corollary, Not To Overvalue Life And Not To Fear Death.

The General Interest Of The Masses Might Take The Place Of The Insight Of Genius If It Were Allowed Freedom Of Action.

The Best Doctor Is The One You Run To And Can't Find.

If There Were A Reason For Preferring The Christian Religion To Natural Religion, It Would Be Because The Former Offers Us, On The Nature Of God And Man, Enlightenment That The Latter Lacks. Now, This Is Not At All The Case; For Christianity, Instead Of Clarifying, Gives Rise To An Infinite Multitude Of Obscurities And Difficulties.

There Is Not A Musselman Alive Who Would Not Imagine That He Was Performing An Action Pleasing To God And His Holy Prophet By Exterminating Every Christian On Earth, While The Christians Are Scarcely More Tolerant On Their Side.

Integrity Is The Evidence Of All Civil Virtues.

It Is Not The Man Who Is Beside Himself, But He Who Is Cool And Collected,--who Is Master Of His Countenance, Of His Voice, Of His Actions, Of His Gestures, Of Every Part Of His Play,--who Can Work Upon Others At His Pleasure.

Do You See This Egg? With This You Can Topple Every Theological Theory, Every Church Or Temple In The World.

Although A Man May Wear Fine Clothing, If He Lives Peacefully; And Is Good, Self-possessed, Has Faith And Is Pure; And If He Does Not Hurt Any Living Being, He Is A Holy Man.

Shakespeare's Fault Is Not The Greatest Into Which A Poet May Fall. It Merely Indicates A Deficiency Of Taste.

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.

Bad Company Is As Instructive As Licentiousness. One Makes Up For The Loss Of One's Innocence With The Loss Of One's Prejudices.

Superstition Is More Injurious To God Than Atheism.

Positive Atheism

Gentleness 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.

People Praise Virtue, But They Hate It, They Run Away From It. It Freezes You To Death, And In This World You've Got To Keep Your Feet Warm.

L'homme Est Ne Pour La Socie Te ; Se Parez-le, Isolez-le, Ses Ide Es Se De Suniront, Son Caracte' Re Se Tournera, Mille Affections Ridicules S'e Le' Veront Dans Son Coeur; Des 274 Pense Es Extravagantes Germeront Dans Son Esprit, Comme Les Ronces Dans Une Terre Sauvage. Man Is Born To Live In Society: Separate Him, Isolate Him, And His Ideas Disintegrate, His Character Changes, A Thousand Ridiculous Affectations Rise Up In His Heart; Extreme Thoughts Take Hold In His Mind, Like The Brambles In A Wild Field.

And His Hands Would Plait The Priest's Entrails, For Want Of A Rope, To Strangle Kings.

Are We Not Madder Than Those First Inhabitants Of The Plain Of Sennar? We Know That The Distance Separating The Earth From The Sky Is Infinite, And Yet We Do Not Stop Building Our Tower.

To Say That Man Is A Compound Of Strength And Weakness, Light And Darkness, Smallness And Greatness, Is Not To Indict Him, It Is To Define Him.

Does Not Vanity Itself Cease To Be Blamable, Is It Not Even Ennobled, When It Is Directed To Laudable Objects, When It Confines Itself To Prompting Us To Great And Generous Actions?

A Nation Which Thinks That It Is Belief In God And Not Good Law Which Makes People Honest Does Not Seem To Me Very Advanced.

Doctors Are Always Working To Preserve Our Health And Cooks To Destroy It, But The Latter Are The More Often Successful.

Il Ne Faut Point Donner D'esprit A' Ses Personnages; Mais Savoir Les Placer Dans Des Circonstances Qui Leur En Donnent. You Should Not Give Wit To Your Characters, But Know Instead How To Put Them In Situations Which Will Make Them Witty.

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.

To Attempt The Destruction Of Our Passions Is The Height Of Folly. What A Noble Aim Is That Of The Zealot Who Tortures Himself Like A Madman In Order To Desire Nothing, Love Nothing, Feel Nothing, And Who, If He Succeeded, Would End Up A Complete Monster!

As Long As The Centuries Continue To Unfold, The Number Of Books Will Grow Continually, And One Can Predict That A Time Will Come When It Will Be Almost As Difficult To Learn Anything From Books As From The Direct Study Of The Whole Universe. It Will Be Almost As Convenient To Search For Some Bit Of Truth Concealed In Nature As It Will Be To Find It Hidden Away In An Immense Multitude Of Bound Volumes.

Only God And Some Few Rare Geniuses Can Keep Forging Ahead Into Novelty.

Oh! How Near Are Genius And Madness! Men Imprison Them And Chain Them, Or Raise Statues To Them.

If Ever Anybody Dedicated His Whole Life To The "enthusiasm For Truth And Justice" Using This Phrase In The Good Sense It Was Diderot.

My Friend, You Should Blow Out Your Candle In Order To Find Your Way More Clearly.

What Has Not Been Examined Impartially Has Not Been Well Examined. Skepticism Is Therefore The First Step Towards Truth.

At An Early Age I Sucked Up The Milk Of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato And Euripides, Diluted With That Of Moses And The Prophets.

If Your Little Savage Were Left To Himself And Be Allowed To Retain All His Ignorance, He Would In Time Join The Infant's Reasoning To The Grown Man's Passion, He Would Strangle His Father And Sleep With His Mother.

Philosophy Is As Far Separated From Impiety As Religion Is From Fanaticism.

The Philosopher Forms His Principles On An Infinity Of Particular Observations. He Does Not Confuse Truth With Plausibility, He Takes For Truth What Is True, For False What Is False, For Doubtful What Is Doubtful, And Probable What Is Probable. The Philosophical Spirit Is Thus A Spirit Of Observation And Accuracy.

Two Qualities Essential For The Artist: Moralityand Perspective.

There Are Things I Can't Force. I Must Adjust. There Are Times When The Greatest Change Needed Is A Change Of My Viewpoint.

If You Disturb The Colors Of The Rainbow, The Rainbow Is No Longer Beautiful.

The Best Mannered People Make The Most Absurd Lovers.

Distance Is A Great Promoter Of Admiration.

Poetry Must Have Something In It That Is Barbaric, Vast And Wild.

We Are All Instruments Endowed With Feeling And Memory. Our Senses Are So Many Strings That Are Struck By Surrounding Objects And That Also Frequently Strike Themselves.

How Easy It Is To Tell Tales!

Instinct Guides The Animal Better Than The Man. In The Animal It Is Pure, In Man It Is Led Astray By His Reason And Intelligence.

All Children Are Essentially Criminal.

The Pit Of A Theatre Is The One Place Where The Tears Of Virtuous And Wicked Men Alike Are Mingled.

If There Is One Realm In Which It Is Essential To Be Sublime, It Is In Wickedness. You Spit On A Petty Thief, But You Can't Deny A Kind Of Respect For The Great Criminal.

But If You Will Recall The History Of Our Civil Troubles, You Will See Half The Nation Bathe Itself, Out Of Piety, In The Blood Of The Other Half, And Violate The Fundamental Feelings Of Humanity In Order To Sustain The Cause Of God: As Though It Were Necessary To Cease To Be A Man In Order To Prove Oneself Religious!

One Composition Is Meagre, Though It Has Many Figures; Another Is Rich, Though It Has Few.

There Is No True Sovereign Except The Nation; There Can Be No True Legislator Except The People.

Power Acquired By Violence Is Only A Usurpation, And Lasts Only As Long As The Force Of Him Who Commands Prevails Over That Of Those Who Obey.

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.

It Is Raining Bombs On The House Of The Lord. I Go In Fear And Trembling Lest One Of These Terrible Bombers Gets Into Difficulties.

For Me, My Thoughts Are My Prostitutes.

It Has Been Said That Love Robs Those Who Have It Of Their Wit, And Gives It To Those Who Have None.

In Order To Get As Much Fame As One's Father One Has To Much More Able Than He.

First Of All Move Me, Surprise Me, Rend My Heart; Make Me Tremble, Weep, Shudder; Outrage Me; Delight My Eyes Afterwards If You Can.

It 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.

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.

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.

Posterity For The Philosopher Is What The Other World Is For The Religious Man.

In Order To Shake A Hypothesis, It Is Sometimes Not Necessary To Do Anything More Than Push It As Far As It Will Go.

We Swallow With One Gulp The Lie That Flatters Us, And Drink Drop By Drop The Truth Which Is Bitter To Us.

One May Demand Of Me That I Should Seek Truth, But Not That I Should Find It

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.

The Most Dangerous Madmen Are Those Created By Religion, And People Whose Aim Is To Disrupt Society Always Know How To Make Good Use Of Them On Occasion.

You Can Be Sure That A Painter Reveals Himself In His Work As Much As And More Than A Writer Does In His.

The Philosopher Has Never Killed Any Priests, Whereas The Priest Has Killed A Great Many Philosophers.

When One Compares The Talents One Has With Those Of A Leibniz , One Is Tempted To Throw Away One's Books And Go Die Quietly In The Dark Of Some Forgotten Corner.

Scepticism Is The First Step Towards Truth.

You 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 Immortals… 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.

All Things Must Be Examined, Debated, Investigated Without Exception And Without Regard For Anyone's Feelings.

The Man Who First Pronounced The Barbarous Word God Ought To Have Been Immediately Destroyed.

What Is A Monster? A Being Whose Survival Is Incompatible With The Existing Order.

To Be Born In Imbecility, In The Midst Of Pain And Crisis; To Be The Plaything Of Ignorance, Error, Need, Sickness, Wickedness, And Passions; To Return Step By Step To Imbecility, From The Time Of Lisping To That Of Doting; To Live Among Knaves And Charlatans Of All Kinds; To Die Between One Man Who Takes Your Pulse And Another Who Troubles Your Head; Never To Know Where You Come From, Why You Come And Where You Are Going! That Is What Is Called The Most Important Gift Of Our Parents And Nature. Life.

Trending Author

Tallulah Bankhead

Freddie Mercury

Millard Fillmore

Category