Denis Diderot Quotes

Our fear of hypocrisy is forcing us to live in a world where gluttons are fine, so long as they champion gluttony.

Virtue has its own reward, but no sale at the box office.

America undermines its own ideals when it ignores the very values it is promoting around the world. You cannot ask other people in the world to follow the law and act responsibly if we don't do the same... and being afraid is not an excuse.

Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.

He who dies for virtue does not perish.

The best men are not consistent in good--why should the worst men be consistent in evil?

… there are times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous resolution to form is flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight.

No iconoclast can possibly escape the severest criticism. …. The world always demands of a prophet a double standard. He must live a life consistent with his dreams, and at the same time must obey the conventions of the world. He cannot be judged either by one or the other, but must be judged by both.

Occasionally the conflict between 'what we stand for' and 'what we do' has been forthrightly addressed.

I know and do what is right better than many big men who read.

What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest.

Indeed, Rusbridger has finessed for the Guardian a certain willing suspension of disbelief and is able to credibly maintain conceits and moral standards to which his own behaviour hardly conforms.

The thing about gay people is that until we come out of the closet, we're always protecting other people: 'I can't do this, because it's gonna hurt so-and-so.' We're trying to live the lives of other people, and that's the worst thing you can do.

The message bombarding young adults from the leftist cultural elite is clear; you should think for yourself... by adopting my beliefs as your own.

There have been moments in my life when I've become numb to certain aspects of myself that I found frightening. Or I've conformed to certain morals of society and then maybe rebelled or found a way out.

Sometimes you've got to do things you don't want to do. Doing the right thing is not always comfortable; it doesn't always feel good.

Come, swear it, damn thyself, lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves should fear to seize thee; therefore be double-damned, swear,--thou art honest.

Hypocrisy is an homage that vice renders to virtue.

Men do not so much hate an evil-doer, or evil itself, as they hate the man who calls evil by its real name.

Please everyone without becoming a hypocrite or a coward.

It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.

He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.

It's hard to keep your backbone straight in America. It's easy to turn into that which you hate, and to get smashed.

It is difficult to preach, this morality of mediocrity! It may never admit what it is and what it wants! It must speak about restraint and worth and duty and love of one's neighbor.