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Intelligent people make many mistakes because they cannot believe the world is really as foolish as it is.

Nicolas Chamfort

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Nicolas Chamfort
Age: 53 †
Born: 1741
Born: April 6
Died: 1794
Died: April 13
Journalist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Clarmont-Ferrand
Make
Foolish
World
Mistakes
People
Intelligent
Mistake
Cannot
Many
Believe
Really

More quotes by Nicolas Chamfort

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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.
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Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking.
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Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.
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She commands who is blest with indifference.
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Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Vivre est un maladie dont le sommeil nous soulage toutes les 16 heures. C'est un pallatif. La mort est le remede.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Knowledge is boundless,--human capacity, limited.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Wrinkles and ill-nature together made a woman hideous.
Nicolas Chamfort
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There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. It is, he says, because the author proceeds from the thought to the expression, and the reader from the expression to the thought.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves.
Nicolas Chamfort
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There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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.
Nicolas Chamfort