Quote

What one knows best is ... what one has learned not from books but as a result of books, through the reflections to which they have given rise.

Nicolas Chamfort

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Nicolas Chamfort
Age: 53 †
Born: 1741
Born: April 6
Died: 1794
Died: April 13
Journalist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Clarmont-Ferrand
Book
Rise
Reflection
Result
Learned
Results
Books
Given
Best
Reflections

More quotes by Nicolas Chamfort

Image
If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
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.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Man reaches each stage of his life as a novice.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
His passions make man live, his wisdom merely makes him last.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
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
Image
It is children only who enjoy the present their elders either live on the memory of the past or the hope of the future.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
In love, everything is true, everything is false it is the one subject on which one cannot express an absurdity.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
All passions exaggerate and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
He who disguises tyranny, protection, or even benefits under the air and name of friendship reminds me of the guilty priest who poisoned the sacramental bread.
Nicolas Chamfort
Image
She commands who is blest with indifference.
Nicolas Chamfort