A Quote by Denis Diderot

Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.

Denis Diderot

Quote Topics

Man Other Philosopher Posterity Religious Religious Man World

Quote Author

Denis Diderot
French - Editor
October 5, 1713 - July 31, 1784

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i. e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.

Ludwig Feuerbach

What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man!-To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity; to be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries!

Thomas B. Macaulay

LAUGHTER is the very essence of religion. Seriousness is never religious, cannot be religious. Seriousness is of the ego, part of the very disease. Laughter is egolessness. Yes, there is a difference between when you laugh and when a religious man laughs. The difference is that you laugh always about others - the religious man laughs at himself, or at the whole ridiculousness of man's being. Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life.

Rajneesh

It is not unusual to hear a religious leader, a philosopher, or a poet refer to man as having a divine spark within him. Such characterizations infer that man possesses great abilities and potentials. We are frequently admonished to develop our capabilities, reach out, and set high goals for ourselves.

Ezra Taft Benson

Sometimes when a philosopher's views are widely rejected by the world, the fault is not with the philosopher but with the world.

Allen W. Wood

Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one.

George Bernard Shaw

If we are told a man is religious we still ask what are his morals? But if we hear at first that he has honest morals, and is a man of natural justice and good temper, we seldom think of the other question, whether he be religious and devout.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

In fact, philosophy is universal in scope. No man can live without a world view; therefore, there is no man who is not a philosopher.

Francis Schaeffer

The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. Mystery, on the other hand, is demanded and pursued by the religious instinct; mystery constitutes the essence of worship.

Henri Frederic Amiel

A man may be the greatest philosopher in the world but a child in RELIGION. When a man has developed a high state of spirituality he can understand that the kingdom of heaven is within him.

Swami Vivekananda

The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. Mystery on the other hand is demanded and pursued by the religious instinct; mystery constitutes the essence of worship, the power of proselytism.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Sir, very few people reach posterity. Who amongst us may arrive at that destination I presume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets.

Benjamin Disraeli

If a philosopher is not a man, he is anything but a philosopher; he is above all a pedant, and a pedant is a caricature of a man.

Miguel de Unamuno

What the philosopher is seeking is not truth, but rather the metamorphosis of the world into man.

Friedrich Nietzsche

To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.