Nicolas Chamfort - Nature Quotes

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To be happy, there are certain sides of our nature that must be entirely stultified.

Nicolas Chamfort
He who allows his happiness to depend too much on reason, who submits his pleasures to examination, and desires enjoyments only of the most refined nature, too often ends by not having any at all.

Nicolas Chamfort
The physical plagues and the calamities of human nature have rendered society necessary. Society has added to the evils of nature; the imperfections of society have created the necessity for government, and government adds still further to the woes of society: this is the whole history of humanity.

Nicolas Chamfort
Middle-class women who entertain the hope or fancy of being something in the world, lose Nature's happiness and miss Society's. They are the most unfortunate creatures I have known.

Nicolas Chamfort
Nature didn't tell me "Don't be poor"; and certainly didn't say: "Get rich"; but she did shout: "Always be independent!"

Nicolas Chamfort
Society is not, as is commonly supposed, the development of nature, but rather her dismantling and entire recasting. It is a second building made from the ruins of the first.

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
Nowadays, those who love nature are accused of being romantic.

Nicolas Chamfort
Was man made to disdain the gifts of nature? Was he placed on earth but to gather bitter fruits? For whom are the flowers the gods cause to bloom at the feet of mortals? It pleases Providence when we abandon ourselves to the different inclinations that He has given us: our duties come from His laws, and our desires from His inspirations.

Nicolas Chamfort
In experiencing the ills of nature, one despises death; in learning the evils of society, one despises life.

Nicolas Chamfort
Nature in causing reason and the passions to be born at one and the same time apparently wished by the latter gift to distract man from the evil she had done him by the former, and by only permitting him to live for a few years after the loss of his passions seems to show her pity by early deliverance from a life that reduces him to reason as his sole resource.

Nicolas Chamfort