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
The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dicebox in hand, shaking the dice. – Denis Diderot
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go. – Denis Diderot
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings. – Denis Diderot
Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them. – Johann von Goethe