You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.

Diderot who had been under police surveillance since 1747 was swiftly identified as the author. Denis Diderot (French: [dəni didʁo]) (October 5 1713 – July 31 1784) was a French philosopher art critic and writer. The decree did not stop the work which went on but its difficulties increased by the necessity of being clandestine.

He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. Denis Diderot (French: [dəni didʁo]) (October 5 1713 – July 31 1784) was a French philosopher art critic and writer.