Nicolas Chamfort - Reason Quotes

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My whole life is woven of threads which are in blatant contrast to my principles. … I love self-chosen poverty, and live among rich people; I avoid all honors, and yet some have come to me. … I believe that illusions are necessary to man, yet live without illusion; I believe that the passions are more profitable than reason, and yet no longer know what passion is.

Nicolas Chamfort
Anyone who relies too heavily on reason to achieve happiness, who analyses it, who, so to speak, quibbles over his enjoyment and can accept only refined pleasures, ends up not having any at all. He's like a man who wants to get rid of all the lumps in his mattress and eventually ends up sleeping on bare boards.

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
Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.

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
Few people are prepared to use their reason without fear or favor, or bold enough to apply it relentlessly to every moral, political and social issue: to kings and ministers, to men in high places … And if we don't, we're doomed to remain mediocre.

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

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 public is governed as it reasons; its own prerogative is foolish speech and that of its governors is foolish action.

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
Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians -- lack of power to pronounce the syllable, "No." To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one's freedom and one's character.

Nicolas Chamfort
In order to forgive reason for the evil it has wrought on the majority of men, we must imagine for ourselves what man would be without his reason. 'Tis a necessary evil.

Nicolas Chamfort