Nicolas Chamfort Quotes

Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.

People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess.

All that I've learned, I've forgotten. The little that I still know, I've guessed.

It is passion that makes man live; wisdom makes one only last.

We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.

There is a melancholy that stems from greatness

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

Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.

The contact of two epidermises.

A 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.

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

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

Love is like epidemic diseases. The more one fears it the more likely one is to contract it.

Success makes success, like money makes money.

Satire is the disease of art.

Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.

A woman is like your shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.

Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known.

Love is the exchange of two fantasies and the contact of two skins.

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

Women of the world crave excitement.

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

In the library of the world men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, and the binding; the time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.

It is children only who enjoy the present; their elders either live on the memory of the past or the hope of the future.

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

Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.

Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.

Society is divided into two classes, the shearers and the shorn.

A fool who has a flash of wit creates astonishment and scandal, like hack-horses setting out to gallop.

Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality.

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.

There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.

Someone described Providence as the baptismal name of chance; no doubt some pious person will retort that chance is the nickname of Providence.

Conviction is the conscience of intellect.

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

The majority of the books of our time give one the impression of having been manufactured in a day out of books read the day before.

It is said of a lonely man that he does not appreciate the life of society. This is like saying he hates hiking because he dislikes walking in thick forest on a dark night.

Vivre est un maladie dont le sommeil nous soulage toutes les 16 heures. C'est un pallatif. La mort est le remede.

Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.

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.

Do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door.

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

Change, change,--we all covet change.

Were 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.

Wicked people sometimes perform good actions. I suppose they wish to see if this gives as great a feeling of pleasure as the virtuous claim for it.

If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly.

Where violence reigns, reason is weak.

If taking vitamins doesn't keep you healthy enough, try more laughter: The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed.