“Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.”

—  Denis Diderot

As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 338

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory." by Denis Diderot?
Denis Diderot photo
Denis Diderot106
French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist 1713–1784

Related quotes

“The truth is that our sovereignty was given away a long time ago, and the Lisbon Treaty was the final nail in the coffin for Ireland’s independence.”

Niamh Uí Bhriain (1970) Irish activist

Will EU Bailout Lead to Further Threats to Ireland’s Pro-Life Laws? http://www.thelifeinstitute.net/blog/2010/11/23/will-eu-bailout-lead-to-further-threats-to-irelands-pro-life-laws/ (November 23, 2010)

Edith Sitwell photo

“Still falls the Rain —
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss —
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

Still Falls the Rain (1940)

Bertrand Russell photo

“In the welter of conflicting fanaticisms, one of the few unifying forces is scientific truthfulness, by which I mean the habit of basing our beliefs upon observations and inferences as impersonal, and as much divested of local and temperamental bias, as is possible for human beings.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Chapter XXXI "The Philosophy of Logical Analysis"

Will Carleton photo

“Not a log in this buildin' but its memories has got
And not a nail in this old floor but touches a tender spot.”

Will Carleton (1845–1912) poet.

Out of the old House, Nancy, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“That is the beauty of memory, isn’t it? Our reality is always clouded by our perceptions of truth. (Mnimi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

“After defining semantical concepts like logical truth and related ones, I proposed to interpret the modalities as those properties of propositions which correspond to certain semantical properties of the sentences expressing the propositions. For example, a proposition is logically necessary if and only if a sentence expressing it is logically true.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Source: Carnap’s intellectual biography (1963), p. 62

Bernard Cornwell photo

“Whenever human beings don't know what to do, they call in the soldiers. Force ends everything, yes? That's what they did with Christ, Mr. Sharpe, they called in the soldiers. They didn't know what to do with him so they called on men like you and I don't suppose they thought twice about what they were doing, they just banged in the nails. You'd have done that, wouldn't you?”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Reverend Doctor Patrick Curtis, p. 223
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Guigo I photo

“Without form or comeliness, and nailed to the cross—thus is truth to be adored.”

Guigo I (1083–1136) Cartusian monk

#5
The Meditations of Guigo I, Prior of the Charterhouse

John Updike photo

“Truth should not be forced; it should simply manifest itself, like a woman who has in her privacy reflected and coolly decided to bestow herself upon a certain man.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

Related topics