18 Nicolas Chamfort Quotes

Nicolas Chamfort quotes

1. L'amour, tel qu'il existe dans la societe, n'est que l'echange de deux fantaisies et le contact de deux epidermes.

2. The only thing that stops God sending a second Flood is that the first one was useless.

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

4. 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.

5. Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisee, il est tres difficile de le trouver en nous et impossible de le trouver ailleurs.

6. Said a man ingenuously to one of his friends: 'This morning we condemned three men to death. Two of them definitely deserved it.'

1. 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.

2. Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.

3. Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the one most surely wasted.

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

5. 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.

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

7. The poor are the blacks of Europe.

8. It is with happiness as with watches: the less complicated, the less easily deranged.

9. A modicum of discord is the very spice of courtship.

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

11. 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.

12. 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.