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Home  »  Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men  »  Denis Diderot

S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Denis Diderot

  • [An eminent French philosopher; born in Champagne, 1712 or 1713; supported himself in Paris by teaching, and lived many years in poverty while engaged in study; was imprisoned for his first publications, or saw them burned; founded and edited with d’Alembert the Encyclopædia, from which he retired, 1759; visited St. Petersburg, 1773; died in Paris, 1784.]
  • The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

  • In his last conversation.
  • Another of his aphorisms will be less contested: “Only the bad man is alone.”