Nicolas Chamfort Quotes
Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.
The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.
Intelligent people make many mistakes because they cannot believe the world is really as foolish as it is.
Every day I add to the list of things I refuse to discuss. The wiser the man, the longer the list.
There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.
Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.
One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be idiocy because it has been able to appeal to the majority
It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.
Scandal is an importunate wasp, against which we must make no movement unless we are quite sure that we can kill it; otherwise it will return to the attack more furious than ever.
Calumny is like the wasp which worries you, and which it is not best to try to get rid of unless you are sure of slaying it; for otherwise it returns to the charge more furious than ever.
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.
It is children only who enjoy the present; their elders either live on the memory of the past or the hope of the future.
Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.
Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.
Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking.
And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead (suicide note)
Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.
Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.
I have three kinds of friends: those who love me, those who pay no attention to me, and those who detest me.
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.
It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful.
Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures.
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.
An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living.
Tragedy has the great moral defect of giving too much importance to life and death.
