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The majority of the books of our time give one the impression of having been manufactured in a day out of books read the day before.

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
Impression
Majority
Books
Read
Give
Book
Giving
Time
Manufactured

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Man reaches each stage of his life as a novice.
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[Prudence] replaces [strength] by saving the man who has the misfortune of not possessing it from most occasions when it's needed.
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There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.
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Change, change,--we all covet change.
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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.
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Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.
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All passions exaggerate and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.
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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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Anyone whose needs are small seems threatening to the rich, because he's always ready to escape their control.
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We gild our medicines with sweets why not clothe truth and morals in peasant garments as well?
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How many fools does it take to make up a public?
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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.
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Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.
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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.
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He who leaves the game wins it.
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Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.
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In the fine arts, as in many other things, we know well only what we have not learned.
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The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.
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To possess a good cognomen is a long way on the road of success in life.
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Knowledge is boundless,--human capacity, limited.
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