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
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. – Denis Diderot
Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things. – Denis Diderot
People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world youve got to keep your feet warm. – 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
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