Nicolas Chamfort

How many fools does it take to make up a public?

— Nicolas Chamfort

Change, change,--we all covet change.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Wrinkles and ill-nature together made a woman hideous.

— Nicolas Chamfort

The contact of two epidermises.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Men of reason have endured;men of passion have lived.

— Nicolas Chamfort

There is a melancholy that stems from greatness

— Nicolas Chamfort

The sunset glow of self-possession.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Anticipation leads the way to victory, and is the spur to conquest.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

In a country where everyone strives for attention, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

Hope is but a charlatan that ceases not to deceive us. For myself happiness only began when I had lost it.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Tis easier to make certain things legal than to make them legitimate.

— Nicolas Chamfort

It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.

— Nicolas Chamfort

It is said of a lonely man that he does not appreciate the life of society. This is like saying he hates…

— Nicolas Chamfort

There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices…

— Nicolas Chamfort

There aren't many benefactors who don't say, like Satan: All these things will I give you if you bow down and worship…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Wicked people sometimes perform good actions. I suppose they wish to see if this gives as great a feeling of pleasure as…

— Nicolas Chamfort

One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be idiocy because it has been able to appeal…

— Nicolas Chamfort

The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far…

— Nicolas Chamfort

What we love intensely or for a long time we are likely to bring within the citadel, and to assert as part…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from…

— 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…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. "It is," he…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Nature in causing reason and the passions to be born at one and the same time apparently wished by the latter gift…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others.…

— Nicolas Chamfort

The new friends whom we make after attaining a certain age and by whom we would fain replace those whom we have…

— Nicolas Chamfort

I only study the things I like; I apply my mind only to matters that interest me. They'll be useful-or useless-to me…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians -- lack of…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Society ... is nothing more than the war of a thousand petty opposed interests, an eternal strife of all the vanities, which,…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Love, a pleasant folly; ambition, a serious stupidity.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Egotism is the tongue of vanity.

— Nicolas Chamfort

There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Of lies, false modesty is the most decent.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Satire is the disease of art.

— Nicolas Chamfort

False modesty is the most decent of all lies.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Running a house should be left to innkeepers.

— Nicolas Chamfort