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 pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled. – Denis Diderot
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs. – 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