Nicolas Chamfort Quotes

157 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Nicolas Chamfort
Despising money is like toppling a king off his throne.

Nicolas Chamfort
Love as it exists in society is merely the mingling of two fantasies and the contact of two skins.

Nicolas Chamfort
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.

Nicolas Chamfort
Women of the world never use harsh expressions when condemning their rivals. Like the savage, they hurl elegant arrows, ornamented with feathers of purple and azure, but with poisoned points.

Nicolas Chamfort
What is a philosopher? One who opposes nature to law, reason to usage, conscience to opinion, and his judgment to error.

Nicolas Chamfort
The change of fashions is the tax that the industry of the poor levies on the vanity of the rich.

Nicolas Chamfort
In cities the old are more corrupt than the young.

Nicolas Chamfort
There is a kind of harmful modesty which … sometimes affects men of superior character to their detriment by keeping them in a state of mediocrity. I am reminded of the remark that a certain gentleman of acknowledged eminence once made at luncheon to some persons of the Court, "How bitterly I regret the time I wasted merely to learn how superior I am to all of you!"

Nicolas Chamfort
Few people are able to appreciate a philosopher; he's almost a sort of public enemy. Faced by the various pretensions of mankind, …he says bluntly: "I'm prepared to take you only at your true value, what you're really worth." It's not easy to get people to appreciate anyone who makes such an uncompromising declaration.

Nicolas Chamfort
We have three kinds of friends: those who love us, those who are indifferent to us, and those who hate us.

Nicolas Chamfort
When I hear it contended that the least sensitive are, on the whole, the most happy, I recall the Indian proverb: "It's better to sit than to stand, it is better lie down than to sit, but death is best of all."

Nicolas Chamfort
The best philosophy to employ toward the world is to alloy the sarcasm of gayety with the indulgence of contempt.

Nicolas Chamfort
Stubbornness equals character roughly as lust equals love.

Nicolas Chamfort
Love is a malicious blind boy, who seeks to blind the eyes of his guide, that both may go astray together.

Nicolas Chamfort
Love pleases more than marriage, for the reason that romance is more interesting than history.

Nicolas Chamfort
Society would be a charming thing if we were only interested in one another.

Nicolas Chamfort
If you would find to what extent each condition of society can corrupt a man, examine what he is when he has undergone that influence for the longest possible time, that is to say, when he is old. See what an old courtier is like, an old priest, an old judge, an old solicitor, an old surgeon.

Nicolas Chamfort
To live without bitterness, one must turn his eyes toward the ludicrous side of the world, and accustom himself to look at men only as jumping-jacks, and at society as the board on which they jump.

Nicolas Chamfort
"The difference between you and me," said a philosopher, "is that you say to masked hypocrites, 'I know you,' while I leave them with the idea that they have deceived me."

Nicolas Chamfort
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.

Nicolas Chamfort
A man well-known to be a liar had just told a most improbable story. Sir, while I believe you, someone said, you must admit that it's very wrong of truth not to condescend to be more plausible.

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

Nicolas Chamfort
An indiscreet man is an unsealed letter: every one can read it.

Nicolas Chamfort
[Prudence] replaces [strength] by saving the man who has the misfortune of not possessing it from most occasions when it's needed.

Nicolas Chamfort
Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

Nicolas Chamfort
A lover is a man who endeavors to be more amiable than it is possible for him to be: this is the reason why almost all lovers are ridiculous.

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

Nicolas Chamfort
The perfect man … is in a well-lit area watching the foolish antics of people stumbling around in the dark. He can demolish with a laugh the false standards and judgments which others apply to people and things.

Nicolas Chamfort