Denis Diderot - Collected Quotes

"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, "On the Interpretation of Nature", 1753)

"We have three principal means: observation of nature, reflection, and experiment. Observation gathers the facts reflection combines them, experiment verifies the result of the combination. It is essential that the observation of nature be assiduous, that reflection be profound, and that experimentation be exact. Rarely does one see these abilities in combination. And so, creative geniuses are not common." (Denis Diderot, "On the Interpretation of Nature", 1753)

"Beauty has in art the same foundation as does truth in philosophy. What is the truth? The conformity of our judgements with beings. What is the beauty of imitation? The conformity of the image with the thing." (Denis Diderot, "Entretiens sur le fils naturel", 1757)

"The public does not always know how to desire the truth." (Denis Diderot, "Discours sur la poesie dramatique", 1758)

"The moral universe is so closely linked to the physical universe that it is scarcely likely that they are not one and the same machine." (Denis Diderot, "Eléments de Physiologie", 1875)

"What is this world of ours? A complex entity subject to sudden changes which all indicate a tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings which follow one another, assert themselves and disappear; a fleeting symmetry; a momentary order." (Denis Diderot, "Lettre sur les aveugles" ["Letter on the Blind"], 1749)

"All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs." (Denis Diderot)

"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." (Denis Diderot)

"Nature, equal in her distributions, entirely destitute of malice, follows only necessary and immutable laws, when she either produces beings or destroys them, when she causes those to suffer, whose construction creates sensibility; when she scatters among them good and evil; when she subjects them to incessant change." (Denis Diderot)