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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
Numbers
Public
Success
Authors
Ideas
Mediocrity
Good
Match
General
Number
Works

More quotes by Nicolas Chamfort

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Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from the moderns is to pick pockets at street corners.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Men of reason have enduredmen of passion have lived.
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.
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A man without nobility cannot have kindliness he can only have good nature.
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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Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.
Nicolas Chamfort
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If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Where violence reigns, reason is weak.
Nicolas Chamfort
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In the fine arts, as in many other things, we know well only what we have not learned.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Change, change,--we all covet change.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Marriage follows on love as smoke on flame.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Pleasure can be supported by an illusion but happiness rests upon truth.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.
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 justly consider women to be weaker than ourselves, and yet we are governed by them.
Nicolas Chamfort