Quote

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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Nicolas Chamfort
Age: 53 †
Born: 1741
Born: April 6
Died: 1794
Died: April 13
Journalist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Clarmont-Ferrand
Picks
Equator
Street
Ancients
Streets
Pirate
Beyond
Steal
Someone
Pockets
Play
Stealing
Corners
Pick
Moderns

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Pleasure can be supported by an illusion but happiness rests upon truth.
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The success of many books is due to the affinity between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and those of the public.
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He who leaves the game wins it.
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Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.
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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.
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If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly.
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Egotism is the tongue of vanity.
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In living and in seeing other men, the heart must break or become as bronze.
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It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.
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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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A lover is a man who tries to be more amiable than it is possible for him to be.
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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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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The new friends whom we make after attaining a certain age and by whom we would fain replace those whom we have lost, are to our old friends what glass eyes, false teeth and wooden legs are to real eyes, natrual teeth and legs of flesh and bone.
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There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.
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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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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.
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