We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves. – Denis Diderot
Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things. – Denis Diderot
Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey. – Denis Diderot
Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence. – Henry Fuseli