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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

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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
Best
Reflections
Book
Rise
Reflection
Result
Learned
Results
Books
Given

More quotes by Nicolas Chamfort

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We justly consider women to be weaker than ourselves, and yet we are governed by them.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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.
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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The best philosophical attitude to adopt towards the world is a union of the sarcasm of gaiety with the indulgence of contempt.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Do you think that revolutions are made with rose water?
Nicolas Chamfort
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Change, change,--we all covet change.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.
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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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.
Nicolas Chamfort
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The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Remorse turns us against ourselves.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.
Nicolas Chamfort
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If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.
Nicolas Chamfort
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To enjoy and give enjoyment, without injury to yourself or others this is true morality.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Be my brother or I will kill you.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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.
Nicolas Chamfort
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He who leaves the game wins it.
Nicolas Chamfort
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If taking vitamins doesn't keep you healthy enough, try more laughter: The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed.
Nicolas Chamfort