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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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Nicolas Chamfort
Age: 53 †
Born: 1741
Born: April 6
Died: 1794
Died: April 13
Journalist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Clarmont-Ferrand
General
Number
Works
Numbers
Public
Success
Authors
Ideas
Mediocrity
Good
Match

More quotes by Nicolas Chamfort

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Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Love is the exchange of two fantasies and the contact of two skins.
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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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.
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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We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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
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All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.
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
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She commands who is blest with indifference.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Knowledge is boundless,--human capacity, limited.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Pleasure can be supported by an illusion but happiness rests upon truth.
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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Every woman in choosing a lover takes more account of the way in which other women regard the man than of her own.
Nicolas Chamfort
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The contact of two epidermises.
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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His passions make man live, his wisdom merely makes him last.
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
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In the library of the world men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, and the binding the time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Every day I add to the list of things I refuse to discuss. The wiser the man, the longer the list.
Nicolas Chamfort