Quotes by Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

"No law reaches it, but all right-minded people observe it."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on decency   

"Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on deeds and good deeds   

"Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on education   

"Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on experience
3 fans of this quote   

"Celebrity is the advantage of being known to people who we don't know, and who don't know us."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on fame   

"Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on fashion   

"How many fools does it take to make up a public?"

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on fools and foolishness   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"I have three kinds of friends: those who love me, those who pay no attention to me, and those who detest me."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on friends and friendship
7 fans of this quote   

"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."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on getting ahead   

"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."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on ideas   

"There are well-dressed foolish ideas, just as there are will-dressed fools."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on ideas   

"Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on illusion
6 fans of this quote   

"Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on independence   

"A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on intelligence and intellectuals
3 fans of this quote   

"We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on justice   

"The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on laughter
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on law and lawyers   

"Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on death
5 fans of this quote   

"When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on love
6 fans of this quote   

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

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on women   

"Conviction is the conscience of the mind."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on mind   

"Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on money   

"The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on morality   

"If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on nations   

"All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on passion
4 fans of this quote   

"Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on philosophers and philosophy   

"Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on pleasure
6 fans of this quote   

"There are certain times when public opinion is the worst of all opinions."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on public opinion   

"People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on reason   

"Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on respectability   

"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."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on scandal   

"Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on secrets   

"Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on society   

"Society is divided into two classes, the shearers and the shorn."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on society   

"Success makes success, like money makes money."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on success   

"The person of intellect is lost unless they unite with energy of character. When we have the lantern of Diogenese we must also have his staff."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on action   

"Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on books - reading   

"The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on tact and tactfulness
3 fans of this quote   

"An author is often obscure to the reader because they proceed from the thought to expression than like the reader from the expression to the thought."

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on writers and writing   

"Paris, a city of gaieties and pleasures, where four-fifths of the inhabitants die of grief. [About Paris]"

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De on life