Denis Diderot Quotes

It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.

In my opinion, an individual without any love of the arts cannot be considered completely civilized.

The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments.

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

A rude people, though in some degree alive to the benefits of civilized society, may be unable to practice the forbearance which it demands: their passions may be too violent, or their personal pride too exacting, to forego private conflict, and leave to the laws the avenging of their real or supposed wrongs.

We are all civilized people, wich means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behaviour.

... it is a matter of civilizing everyone or not being civilized at all: the decay has always come from a partial civilization.

We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.

There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an inquisition. One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened civilized people.

That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society.

Is it possible that nobody has ever known that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won't be for another thousand years?

I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches, has become almost civilized. I believe it is our first duty to protect that civilization. I believe it is our second duty to improve it. I believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can.

But we are more than genteel or civilized/ we are an idea in the process of being realized.

Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative.

Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.

Wine is a civilizing agent.

Civilization is not by means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.

The best test of the quality of a civilization is the quality of its leisure.

Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization.

Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization.

The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society's level of civilization.

It is always the moralists who do the most harm. Abortion is the logical outcome of civilization, only the jungle gives birth and moulders away as nature decrees. Man plans.

I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher.

Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.