Nicolas Chamfort Quotes & Sayings

Love is the exchange of two fantasies and the contact of two skins ... — Nicolas Chamfort

Egotism is the tongue of vanity. — Nicolas Chamfort

We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other. — Nicolas Chamfort

Conviction is the conscience of intellect. — Nicolas Chamfort

Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from the moderns is to pick pockets at street corners. — Nicolas Chamfort

When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws. — Nicolas Chamfort

Thought consoles us for all, and heals all. If at times it does you ill, ask it for the remedy for that ill and it will give it to you. — Nicolas Chamfort

Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known. — Nicolas Chamfort

Happiness is not easy to find. It's very difficult to find it in yourself - and impossible to find anywhere else. — Nicolas Chamfort

To possess a good cognomen is a long way on the road of success in life. — Nicolas Chamfort

Narrow waists and narrow minds go together. — Nicolas Chamfort

The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity. — Nicolas Chamfort

Intelligent people make many mistakes because they cannot believe the world is really as foolish as it is. — Nicolas Chamfort

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent. — Nicolas Chamfort

Paris, a city of gaieties and pleasures, where four-fifths of the inhabitants die of grief. — Nicolas Chamfort

Though we best know and cannot deny our imperfections, it is not for us to lose our self-reliance and true manhood. — Nicolas Chamfort

Men of reason have endured;men of passion have lived. — Nicolas Chamfort

An author is often obscure to the reader because they proceed from the thought to expression than like the reader from the expression to the thought. — Nicolas Chamfort

Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another. — Nicolas Chamfort

In the fine arts, as in many other things, we know well only what we have not learned. — Nicolas Chamfort

Anyone whose needs are small seems threatening to the rich, because he's always ready to escape their control. — Nicolas Chamfort

One must not hope to be more than one can be. — Nicolas Chamfort

Be my brother or I will kill you. — Nicolas Chamfort

Slander is the balm of malignity. — Nicolas Chamfort

What we love intensely or for a long time we are likely to bring within the citadel, and to assert as part of oneself. — Nicolas Chamfort

There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love. — Nicolas Chamfort

Calumny is like the wasp which worries you, and which it is not best to try to get rid of unless you are sure of slaying it; for otherwise it returns to the charge more furious than ever. — Nicolas Chamfort

A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure. — Nicolas Chamfort

Society ... is nothing more than the war of a thousand petty opposed interests, an eternal strife of all the vanities, which, turn in turn wounded and humiliated one by the other, intercross, come into collision, and on the morrow expiate the triumph of the eve in the bitterness of defeat. To live alone, to remain unjostled in this miserable struggle, where for a moment one draws the eyes of the spectators, to be crushed a moment later
this is what is called being a nonentity, having no existence. Poor humanity! — Nicolas Chamfort

If we would please in society, we must be prepared to be taught many things we know already by people who do not know them. — Nicolas Chamfort

Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians
lack of power to pronounce the syllable, "No." To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one's freedom and one's character. — Nicolas Chamfort

The poor are the blacks of Europe. — Nicolas Chamfort

Someone described Providence as the baptismal name of chance; no doubt some pious person will retort that chance is the nickname of Providence. — Nicolas Chamfort

She commands who is blest with indifference. — Nicolas Chamfort

Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones. — Nicolas Chamfort

At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing. — Nicolas Chamfort

Don't you know that we must always have a place where we never go but where we think we'd be happy if we did? — Nicolas Chamfort

In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen, in small things they show themselves as they are — Nicolas Chamfort

All that I've learned, I've forgotten. The little that I still know, I've guessed. — Nicolas Chamfort

We must start human society from scratch; as Francis Bacon said, we must recreate human understanding. — Nicolas Chamfort

Too elevated qualities often unfit a man for society. We do not go to market with ingots, but with silver and small change. — Nicolas Chamfort

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France. — Nicolas Chamfort

He who leaves the game wins it. — Nicolas Chamfort

The majority of the books of our time give one the impression of having been manufactured in a day out of books read the day before. — Nicolas Chamfort

Men's hearts and faces are always wide asunder; women's are not only in close connection, but are mirror-like in the instant power of reflection. — Nicolas Chamfort

Chance is a nickname for Providence. — Nicolas Chamfort

A man is not necessarily intelligent because he has plenty of ideas, any more than he is a good general because he has plenty of soldiers. — Nicolas Chamfort

Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes. — Nicolas Chamfort

When you want to be well-liked in the world, you have to let a lot of people teach you things that you know and they don't. — Nicolas Chamfort

We ought to be able to combine opposites: the love of goodness with indifference to other people's opinions, a liking for work with indifference to fame, concern for our health with indifference to life. — Nicolas Chamfort

In love, everything is true, everything is false; it is the one subject on which one cannot express an absurdity. — Nicolas Chamfort

A modicum of discord is the very spice of courtship. — Nicolas Chamfort

Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact. — Nicolas Chamfort

Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life. — Nicolas Chamfort

There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools. — Nicolas Chamfort

It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful. — Nicolas Chamfort

Every day I add to the list of things I refuse to discuss. The wiser the man, the longer the list. — Nicolas Chamfort

If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly. — Nicolas Chamfort

[Prudence] replaces [strength] by saving the man who has the misfortune of not possessing it from most occasions when it's needed. — Nicolas Chamfort

Having lots of ideas doesn't mean you're clever, any more than having lots of soldiers means you're a good general. — Nicolas Chamfort

Marriage follows on love as smoke on flame. — Nicolas Chamfort

Man reaches each stage of his life as a novice. — Nicolas Chamfort

The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed. — Nicolas Chamfort

People are governed by the head; a kind heart is of little value in chess. — Nicolas Chamfort

The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society. — Nicolas Chamfort

It is passion that makes man live; wisdom makes one only last. — Nicolas Chamfort

All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate. — Nicolas Chamfort

What one knows best is ... what one has learned not from books but as a result of books, through the reflections to which they have given rise. — Nicolas Chamfort

People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess. — Nicolas Chamfort

Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors. — Nicolas Chamfort

Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact. — Nicolas Chamfort

Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more. — Nicolas Chamfort

The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little. — Nicolas Chamfort

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day. — Nicolas Chamfort

Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all. — Nicolas Chamfort

He who disguises tyranny, protection, or even benefits under the air and name of friendship reminds me of the guilty priest who poisoned the sacramental bread. — Nicolas Chamfort

Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery. — Nicolas Chamfort

The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live. — Nicolas Chamfort

Tragedy has the great moral defect of giving too much importance to life and death. — Nicolas Chamfort

Tis easier to make certain things legal than to make them legitimate. — Nicolas Chamfort

Woman's weakness, not man's merit, oftenest gains the suitor's victory. — Nicolas Chamfort

Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death. — Nicolas Chamfort

Education must have two foundations
morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists. — Nicolas Chamfort

Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth. — Nicolas Chamfort

Celebrity is the advantage of being known to people who we don't know, and who don't know us. — Nicolas Chamfort

There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men. — Nicolas Chamfort

In order not to find life unbearable, you must accept two things: the ravages of time and the injustices of man. — Nicolas Chamfort

Remorse turns us against ourselves. — Nicolas Chamfort

His passions make man live, his wisdom merely makes him last. — Nicolas Chamfort

The threat of a neglected cold is for doctors what the threat of purgatory is for priests-a gold mine. — Nicolas Chamfort

And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead. [last words] — Nicolas Chamfort

The best philosophical attitude to adopt towards the world is a union of the sarcasm of gaiety with the indulgence of contempt. — Nicolas Chamfort

We gild our medicines with sweets; why not clothe truth and morals in peasant garments as well? — Nicolas Chamfort

We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm. — Nicolas Chamfort

Society is divided into two classes, the shearers and the shorn. — Nicolas Chamfort

A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead. — Nicolas Chamfort

A fool who has a flash of wit creates astonishment and scandal, like hack-horses setting out to gallop. — Nicolas Chamfort

Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures. — Nicolas Chamfort

The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out. — Nicolas Chamfort

A day without laughter is a day wasted. — Nicolas Chamfort