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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.

Denis Diderot

It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.

Denis Diderot

Nature

Human nature

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

Denis Diderot

Order

Will

Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.

All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.

Denis Diderot

Nothing

Study

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.

My ideas are my whores.

Denis Diderot

Ideas

No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.

One declaims endlessly against the passions; one imputes all of man's suffering to them. One forgets that they are also the source of all his pleasures.

Denis Diderot

Man

Suffering

Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.

Denis Diderot

Soul

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

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.