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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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.
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There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.
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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.
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A woman is like your shadow follow her, she flies fly from her, she follows.
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If you must love your neighbor as yourself, it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbor.
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We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.
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Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.
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There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.
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Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.
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Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.
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Wicked people sometimes perform good actions. I suppose they wish to see if this gives as great a feeling of pleasure as the virtuous claim for it.
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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.
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Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones.
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A man without nobility cannot have kindliness he can only have good nature.
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There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.
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Do you think that revolutions are made with rose water?
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Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.
Nicolas Chamfort
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We need to be just before we are generous, as we need shirts before ruffles.
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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
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