Nicolas Chamfort Quotes
Nicolas Chamfort presents sly philosophical critiques of society and happiness that feel like a wry café conversation.
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L'amour, tel qu'il existe dans la societe, n'est que l'echange de deux fantaisies et le contact de deux epidermes.
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The only thing that stops God sending a second Flood is that the first one was useless.
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We must start human society from scratch; as Francis Bacon said, we must recreate human understanding.
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La pensee console de tout et remedie a tout. Si quelquefois elle vous fait du mal, demandez-lui le remede du mal qu'elle vous a fait, elle vous le donnera.
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Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisee, il est tres difficile de le trouver en nous et impossible de le trouver ailleurs.
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Said a man ingenuously to one of his friends: 'This morning we condemned three men to death. Two of them definitely deserved it.'
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There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.
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Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.
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Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the one most surely wasted.
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Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.
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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.
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How many fools does it take to make up a public?
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The poor are the blacks of Europe.
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It is with happiness as with watches: the less complicated, the less easily deranged.
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A modicum of discord is the very spice of courtship.
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Tragedy has the great moral defect of giving too much importance to life and death.
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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.
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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 or to others in due course, I'll be given-or not given-the opportunity of benefiting from what I've learned. In any case, I'll have enjoyed the inestimable advantage of doing things I like doing and following my own inclinations.