Nicolas Chamfort

Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

A man without nobility cannot have kindliness; he can only have good nature.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.

— Nicolas Chamfort

In great matters, men behave as they are expected to; in little ones, as they would naturally

— Nicolas Chamfort

If a woman were about to proceed to her execution, she would demand a little time to perfect her toilet.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Obscurity and Innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor, in contact with the world.

— Nicolas Chamfort

It is when their age of passions is past that great men produce their masterpieces, just as it is after volcanic eruptions…

— Nicolas Chamfort

In order to forgive reason for the evil it has wrought on the majority of men, we must imagine for ourselves what…

— Nicolas Chamfort

An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the…

— 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

Were a man to consult only his reason, who would marry? For myself, I wouldn't marry, for fear of having a son…

— 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…

— Nicolas Chamfort

A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of…

— Nicolas Chamfort

Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.

— 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 (suicide note)

— Nicolas Chamfort

Stupidity would not be absolute stupidity did it not fear intelligence.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

To enjoy and give enjoyment, without injury to yourself or others; this is true morality.

— Nicolas Chamfort

“In a country where everyone is trying to be noticed, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.”

— Nicolas Chamfort

Every woman in choosing a lover takes more account of the way in which other women regard the man than of her…

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.

— Nicolas Chamfort

Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.

— 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…

— Nicolas Chamfort

There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

We justly consider women to be weaker than ourselves, and yet we are governed by them.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always:…

— Nicolas Chamfort

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

— Nicolas Chamfort

Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.

— 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

Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its…

— Nicolas Chamfort