Denis Diderot Quotes

Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions.

Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at all seasons, madam: that is all there is to distinguish us from other animals.

We inhabit a world where we're taught that we can have what we desire, and tend to act on it - the least we can do is admit to it when we succumb to our instincts.

'Six Feet Under' was about repressing our deepest, most primal impulses, and 'True Blood' is about giving full sway to them all the time. In a way they are like yin and yang.

Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Dignity was the first quality to be abandoned when the heart took over the running of human affairs.

The passions are the voice of the body.

Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure; nothing more bondage than too much liberty.

The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

The older I get, the more I feel that's all we are: a big bunch of feelings and instincts all wrapped up in some brief encounter with intellect.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

For every laugh, there should be a tear.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

If we feel the least degradation in being amorous, or merry or hungry, or sleepy, we are so far bad animals & miserable men.

As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element.'

The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason.

We say we embrace humanity, but what does that mean? We are all defined by our limits, so to what extent can we embrace all this? Because we all contain within ourselves equally the capacity for kindness, as much as for cruelty or evil. And the best of us are able to suppress those baser impulses, instincts. That's the war within.

We are constantly railing against the passions; we ascribe to them all of man's afflictions, and we forget that they are also the source of all his pleasures.