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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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Nicolas Chamfort
Age: 53 †
Born: 1741
Born: April 6
Died: 1794
Died: April 13
Journalist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Clarmont-Ferrand
Collection
Collections
Worthy
Save
Nations
Attention
Sway
Free
Anecdotes
History
Despotism

More quotes by 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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Hope is but a charlatan that ceases not to deceive us. For myself happiness only began when I had lost it.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Though we best know and cannot deny our imperfections, it is not for us to lose our self-reliance and true manhood.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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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Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.
Nicolas Chamfort
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There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.
Nicolas Chamfort
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When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.
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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Marriage follows on love as smoke on flame.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Men's hearts and faces are always wide asunder women's are not only in close connection, but are mirror-like in the instant power of reflection.
Nicolas Chamfort
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One must not hope to be more than one can be.
Nicolas Chamfort
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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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We must start human society from scratch as Francis Bacon said, we must recreate human understanding.
Nicolas Chamfort
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All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.
Nicolas Chamfort
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The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.
Nicolas Chamfort
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Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.
Nicolas Chamfort