Denis Diderot: Goodness

Denis Diderot was French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist. Explore interesting quotes on goodness.

Denis Diderot: 212 quotes19 likes

“Good music is very close to primitive language.”

"Correspondence of Ideas with the Motion of Organs"
Elements of Physiology (1875)

“A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.”

Denis Diderot

“The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.”

Denis Diderot

Article on Government
L'Encyclopédie (1751-1766)

“The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and … people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.”

Denis Diderot

Conversations with a Christian Lady (1774)

“There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father”

Denis Diderot

No. 51
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)

“This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together solely by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will.”

Denis Diderot

Article on Encyclopedia, as translated in The Many Faces of Philosophy : Reflections from Plato to Arendt (2001), "Diderot", p. 237
L'Encyclopédie (1751-1766)

“Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.”

Denis Diderot

Gautama Buddha, as quoted in the Dhammapada.
Misattributed

“Jacques said that his master said that everything good or evil we encounter here below was written on high.”

Denis Diderot

Prologue
Jacques le Fataliste (1796)

“Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.”

Denis Diderot

Observations on the Drawing Up of Laws (1774)