"Diderot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Diderot, Denis.—An Essay on Blindness, etc. Interspersed with several anecdotes of Sanderson, Milton, and others. Translated from the French. London ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... proposal to make the State "take the place of the personal deity that is passing out of men's lives. Machiavelli was a fetich worshipper of the State. Preserve the State, say Machiavelli regardless of justice, or pity, or honor! As Diderot, quoted by Mr. Morley, said of this, it is an argument which should be headed, "The Circumstances under which it is right for a Prince to ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... on the revolutionary spirit before the revolution, the Comte de Lucay and M. de Lavergne, on the ministerial power and on the provincial assemblies and estates; M. Desnoiresterres, on Voltaire; M. Scherer, on Diderot; M. de Lomenie, on Beaumarchais; and many others; and if, after all, it is the old writers, the contemporaries, on whom I have most relied, without the assistance of these modern writers I certainly could not ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Foreigners of distinction have been known to visit Hampstead, and to inquire for the Flask Walk, distinguished as a scene in Clarissa's history, just as travellers visit the rocks of Meillerie to view the localities of Rousseau's tale of passion. Diderot vied with Rousseau in heaping incense upon the shrine of the English author. The former compares him to Homer, and predicts for his memory the same honours which are rendered to the father of epic poetry; and the last, besides ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... bloodshed, instead of universal peace and good-will towards men,—that the Rights of Man included murder, confiscation, and atheism,—that the Sovereignty of the People meant the rule of King Mob, who seemed determined to carry out to the letter Diderot's famous couplet,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... the two—Fielding and Richardson—had his host of followers. Abroad Richardson won immediate recognition; in France Diderot went so far as to compare him with Homer and Moses! He gave the first impulse to modern French fiction. At home, less happily, he set going the sentimental school, and it was only when that had passed away that—in the delicate and subtle character-study of Miss ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... trustworthy; and Marshall Mollendorff[13] told the Duc de Bassano[14] in 1807 that it was the most veracious of books written by the most honest of men. Thiebault says that he has no personal knowledge of the truth of the story, but {4} that it was believed throughout the whole of the north of Europe. Diderot[15] paid a visit to the Russian Court at the invitation of the Empress. He conversed very freely, and gave the younger members of the Court circle a good deal of lively atheism. The Empress was much amused, but some of her councillors suggested that it might be desirable to check these expositions ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... reputations. She flattered the fierce deists by owning fealty to "Le Roi" Voltaire; she flattered the mild deists by calling in La Harpe as the tutor of her grandson; she flattered the atheists by calling in Diderot ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Catholicism and the old feudalism was rapidly diminishing, the night of superstition was passing, and the age of reason, that was to culminate with such tremendous and horrible force in the French Revolution, was beginning to dawn. The encyclopaedists, with Diderot and d'Alembert in the van, were holding council in France, mobilizing the intellects of the time, and, like Bacon, taking all knowledge for their province, for a fierce attack on the old philosophy, the old statecraft, the old art, and the old religion. Are such topics and such men to deal ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... d'Holbach (1723-1789), was the center of the radical wing of the philosophes. He was friend, host, and patron to a wide circle that included Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, and Hume. Holbach wrote, translated, edited, and issued a stream of books and pamphlets, often under other names, that has made him the despair of bibliographers but has connected his name, by innuendo, gossip, and association, with ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... Encyclopaedists, to whom such a considerable role is attributed, they hardly dealt with politics, excepting d'Holbach, a liberal monarchist like Voltaire and Diderot. They wrote chiefly in defence of individual liberty, opposing the encroachments of the Church, at that time extremely intolerant and inimical to philosophers. Being neither Socialists nor democrats, the Revolution could not utilise any ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... of inspiring his readers with an enthusiastic admiration of his theories. His romances misled many thousands, and were the most popular productions of his times. Though he and Voltaire were the exponents of French Deism, they were greatly aided in the dissemination of skeptical doctrines by Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, d'Argent, de la Mettrie, and others. Bayle, in his Dictionary, appealed to the learned circles; and, not content to give only historical facts, he ventured upon the origination or reproduction of those new skeptical ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... bank-notes. She had the faculty of absorbing beautiful thoughts and sentiments, and no woman ever expressed them in a more graceful way. People said she was the greatest woman author of her day. "You mean of all time," corrected Diderot. They called her "the High Priestess of Letters," "the Minerva of Poetry," "Sappho Returned," and all that. Her commendation meant success and her indifference failure. She knew politics, too, and her hands were on all wires. Did she wish to placate a minister, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... Praise. We scarcely think our Fame eternal If vouched for by the Farthing Journal; But when the Craftsman's self has spoken, We take it for a certain Token. This an Example best will show, Derived from DENNIS DIDEROT. ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... analysis and philosophical criticism from age to age by their powerful style and the original turn given by them to ideas.' Here, for the benefit of the philistine, insert a panegyric on Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Buffon. Hold forth upon the inexorable French language; show how it spreads a varnish, as it were, over thought. Let fall a few aphorisms, such as—'A great writer in France is invariably a great man; he writes in a language which compels him to think; ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... at the same time with a serious regret that it was not published. I have forgotten what reason you assigned for not printing it; I cannot think of any sufficient one. Is it too late now? Why not change its form a little and annex to it some account of Carlyle's later pieces, to wit: "Diderot," and "Sartor Resartus." The last is complete, and he has sent it to me in a stitched pamphlet. Whilst I see its vices (relatively to the reading public) of style, I cannot but esteem it a noble philosophical poem, reflecting the ideas, institutions, men of this very ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... French revolutionary thinkers have been issued in Dent's series of French classics. For study and pleasure consult Lord Morley's books on Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... smoke. A great many men go to bed with their cigars in their mouths, light them if they awake in the night, and relight them in the morning before leaving their beds. "The Dutchman is a living alembic," writes Diderot; and it does really seem as though smoking is to him one of the necessary functions of life. Many say that much smoking clouds the brain. But, notwithstanding, if there is a people whose intelligence is ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... of the bible. That was their crime. In order to show that infidels died overwhelmed with remorse and fear they have generally selected from all the infidels since the days of Christ until now five men—the Emperor Julian, Bruno, Diderot, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... Light chatter, even among strangers, in which neither party 'gives himself away,' is very much less fatiguing than an intimacy which makes some call upon the emotions. An actor who accepts the second alternative of Diderot's paradox, and feels his part, is much more likely to break down from overstrain, than one who only simulates feeling and keeps his own emotional life ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... his play of light and its effect upon color, and his charming handling of textures were comparatively unnoticed. Yet as a colorist he may be ranked second to none in French art, and in freshness of handling his work is a model for present-day painters. Diderot early recognized Chardin's excellence, and many artists since his day have admired his pictures; but he is not now a well-known or popular painter. The populace fancies Greuze and his sentimental heads of young girls. They have a prettiness ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... very genius of style, and a sense of the plastic quality of words unequalled, perhaps, since Milton. The time was ripe for him: within France and without it was big with revolution. In verse there were the examples of Andre Chenier and Lamartine; in prose the work of Rousseau and Diderot, of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Chateaubriand; in war and politics the tremendous tradition of Napoleon. Goethe and Schiller had recreated romance and established the foundations of a new palace ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... the soul of man to be the starting point in all investigations of physical science. The eighteenth century philosophers went a step further and rejected all idea of God and the soul. Voltaire, De Montesquieu, D'Holbach, D'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius and the Abbe Raynal, are the chief minds who shaped the thought of France in the eighteenth century, and by their cynicism, sensuality, and contempt for law and order, helped to pave the war for the horrors of the French Revolution. What they offered to the world ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... nouvelle. Faiguet was treasurer of France. He published his project, which is a scheme for simplifying grammar, in the famous eighteenth-century encyclopaedia of Diderot and d'Alembert. ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... Bargeton's rooms were crowded that evening with friends who came to remonstrate with her. She brought her most caustic wit into play. She said that as noble families could not produce a Moliere, a Racine, a Rousseau, a Voltaire, a Massillon, a Beaumarchais, or a Diderot, people must make up their minds to it, and accept the fact that great men had upholsterers and clockmakers and cutlers for their fathers. She said that genius was always noble. She railed at boorish squires for understanding ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... power which Petronius exercises, in its application to every scene, to every individual character, in everything, noble or mean, which he undertakes, I know of but one who is fully equal to the Roman, and that is Diderot. Trimalchio and Agamemnon might have spoken for Petronius, and the nephew Rameau and the parson Papin for Diderot, in every condition and on every occasion inexhaustibly, out of their own nature; just so the purest and noblest souls, whose kind was, after all, not entirely ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... belief that everything taught by the priest is the pure invention of ingenious oppressors who wish to enslave the people in order to consolidate their own tyranny; and that is his reason for professing philosophical ideas resuscitated from the teaching of Diderot, and Holbach. For the school teacher it is almost inconceivable that the priest should be ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... superstitious of religionists. Yet no consistent materialist can refuse to accept this colossal chance hypothesis. All the explanations of the order of the universe which materialists, from Democritus and Epicurus to Diderot and Lange, have devised, rest on the assumption that the elements of matter, being eternal, must pass through infinite combinations, and that one of these must be our present world—a special collocation among the countless millions of collocations, past ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... affected and satisfied nobody entirely. He dubbed Jean-Jacques a dull, paltry rascal. Voltaire, on the other hand, he accounted among the divinely-gifted men, though not on the same level as the amiable Helvetius, or Diderot, or the Baron d'Holbach. In his opinion the greatest genius of the century was Boulanger. He also thought highly of the astronomer Lalande and of Dupuis, author of a Memoir on the origin ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... buried in thought, I tried to invent some expedient that would lead to the truth, I recalled one of Diderot's romances in which a woman, jealous of her lover, resorted to a novel plan, for the purpose of clearing away her doubts. She told him that she no longer loved him and that she wished to leave him. The Marquis des Arcis, the name of the lover, falls into the trap, ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... than any one, more than Voltaire, more than Diderot, responsible for the French Revolution? I am inclined to hold that he was, and if so, according to the revolutionary instincts of all enemies of oppression, we are bound to regard his influence as "good"; unless by chance we are among those who consider the tyranny of the middle-class ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... that it was impossible to compose music to French words, that the language was quite unfit for it, that the French never had music and never would, he himself had composed a good deal of music to French words and produced a French opera, "Le Devin du Village." Diderot was also a warm partisan of the Italians. Pergolesi's beautiful music having been murdered by the French orchestra players at the Grand Opera-House, Diderot proposed for it the following witty and ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... debating the very same terrible problem which brought him so much suffering, that of the new belief which the democracy of the coming century awaits. And, ah! since the days of the immediate ancestors, since the days of Voltaire and Diderot and Rousseau how incessantly had billows of ideas followed and jostled one another, the older ones giving birth to new ones, and all breaking and bounding in a tempest in which it was becoming so difficult to distinguish anything clearly! Whence came the wind, and whither was the ship ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... difficult, when it refrains from arrogance and from insult, claiming for itself both an honest freedom of judgment and the right to participate largely in the bestowment of deserved praise, as well as to maintain a certain cordiality even in its reservations." "If Diderot was as far as possible from being a dramatic poet, if he was destitute of that supreme creative power which involves the transformation of an author's own personality, he possessed, on the other hand, in the highest degree, that faculty of demi-metamorphosis ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... spare frame, thin legs, and plump hands. The strangulation cravat at his throat was of the kind which every marquis wears in all the portraits which adorn eighteenth century literature; it is common alike to Saint-Preux and to Lovelace, to the elegant Montesquieu's heroes and to Diderot's homespun characters (see the first editions ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... phenomena of light, and such profound study of the numerous accessories essential to beauty and effect, made an excellent landscape painter of Vernet, though his fame rests chiefly on the unrivalled excellence of his marine subjects. Diderot remarks, that "though he was undoubtedly inferior to Claude Lorraine in producing bold and luminous effects, he was quite equal to that great painter in rendering the effects of vapor, and superior to him in the ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... The French Revolution came in 1789. It came to put an end to a double philosophy,—the spiritual philosophy of Rousseau's school, founded in reason and religion, the material philosophy of the school of Helvetius, Diderot, and their disciples, atheistic and cynical. The thought of the first of these philosophies was religious at bottom. It consisted merely in freeing the luminous idea of God from the shadows by which ignorance, intolerance, the inquisition of temporal ...
— Atheism Among the People • Alphonse de Lamartine
... compunction if thou dost not feel it?" says a Kempis. And what profits it to discuss or to define happiness if you cannot thereby achieve happiness? Not inapposite in this connection is that terrible story that Diderot tells of a eunuch who desired to take lessons in esthetics from a native of Marseilles in order that he might be better qualified to select the slaves destined for the harem of the Sultan, his master. ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno |
