Nicolas Chamfort - Ideas Quotes

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A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.

Nicolas Chamfort
It is safe to wager that every public idea and every accepted convention is sheer foolishness, because it has suited the majority.

Nicolas Chamfort
Poets, orators, even philosophes, say the same things about fame we were told as boys to encourage us to win prizes. What they tell children to make them prefer being praised to eating jam tarts is the same idea constantly drummed into us to encourage us to sacrifice our real interests in the hope of being praised by our contemporaries or by posterity.

Nicolas Chamfort
Having lots of ideas doesn't mean you're clever, any more than having lots of soldiers means you're a good general.

Nicolas Chamfort
The things you know best are: first, those you know intuitively; second, those you've learned from experience; third, those you've learned not from but through books and the ideas they've inspired in you; and finally, those you've learned in books and from your teachers.

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
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
What is responsible for the success of many works is the rapport between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and the mediocrity of the public's.

Nicolas Chamfort
There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.

Nicolas Chamfort
We may wager that any idea of the public, or any general opinion, is a folly, since it has received the approbation of a majority of the people.

Nicolas Chamfort