Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.
Nicolas ChamfortWere a man to consult only his reason, who would marry? For myself, I wouldn't marry, for fear of having a son who resembled me.
Nicolas ChamfortA 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 ChamfortThe only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.
Nicolas ChamfortSociety ... 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