"Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to"
About this Quote
Diderot’s line is a small, elegant act of insubordination: a refusal to let humiliation be outsourced. It reads like a shrug, but it’s really a boundary. Yes, he admits, dignity is pliable. People bargain with it, suspend it, even spend it for survival or peace. The sting is that he won’t let anyone else manage the terms of that bargain. If he’s going to swallow pride, it has to be chosen, not imposed.
The subtext is Enlightenment to the core: agency matters more than decorum. Diderot isn’t preaching stiff honor; he’s mocking the social machinery that demands deference while calling it “respect.” The sentence turns on “at my own discretion,” a phrase that makes autonomy the only non-negotiable value. You can surrender status, you can play along, you can even abase yourself, but the moment another person orders you to, it stops being pragmatism and becomes domination.
Context sharpens the bite. Diderot lived under regimes of patronage, censorship, and courtly pecking orders; as an editor of the Encyclopedie, he was constantly negotiating with authorities who could punish him for the wrong idea, the wrong tone, the wrong insistence. The quote doubles as a survival tactic and a moral claim: compromise may be necessary, but coerced self-erasure is intolerable. It’s an argument that dignity isn’t a costume you wear; it’s the right to decide when to take it off.
The subtext is Enlightenment to the core: agency matters more than decorum. Diderot isn’t preaching stiff honor; he’s mocking the social machinery that demands deference while calling it “respect.” The sentence turns on “at my own discretion,” a phrase that makes autonomy the only non-negotiable value. You can surrender status, you can play along, you can even abase yourself, but the moment another person orders you to, it stops being pragmatism and becomes domination.
Context sharpens the bite. Diderot lived under regimes of patronage, censorship, and courtly pecking orders; as an editor of the Encyclopedie, he was constantly negotiating with authorities who could punish him for the wrong idea, the wrong tone, the wrong insistence. The quote doubles as a survival tactic and a moral claim: compromise may be necessary, but coerced self-erasure is intolerable. It’s an argument that dignity isn’t a costume you wear; it’s the right to decide when to take it off.
Quote Details
| Topic | Respect |
|---|
More Quotes by Denis
Add to List
