Quote

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

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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
Sides
Letting
Egoists
Education
Vices
Dupes
Support
Defense
Martyrs
Society
Morality
Incline
Others
Foundation
Calculating
Two
Balance
Foundations
Self
Side
Martyr
Must
Virtue
Prudence

More quotes by Nicolas Chamfort

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Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Chance is a nickname for Providence.
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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.
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Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.
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It is children only who enjoy the present their elders either live on the memory of the past or the hope of the future.
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If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.
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A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.
Nicolas Chamfort
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It's a question of prudence. Nobody has a high opinion of fishwives but who would dare offend them while walking through the fish market.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours it is a palliation death is the remedy.
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Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Do you think that revolutions are made with rose water?
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Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.
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The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.
Nicolas Chamfort
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All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.
Nicolas Chamfort
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One must not hope to be more than one can be.
Nicolas Chamfort
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If you must love your neighbor as yourself, it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbor.
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.
Nicolas Chamfort
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It is said of a lonely man that he does not appreciate the life of society. This is like saying he hates hiking because he dislikes walking in thick forest on a dark night.
Nicolas Chamfort
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And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead (suicide note)
Nicolas Chamfort