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
Play
Stealing
Corners
Pick
Moderns
Picks
Equator
Street
Ancients
Streets
Pirate
Beyond
Steal
Someone
Pockets

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Do you think that revolutions are made with rose water?
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Scandal is an importunate wasp, against which we must make no movement unless we are quite sure that we can kill it otherwise it will return to the attack more furious than ever.
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Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.
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It's a question of prudence. Nobody has a high opinion of fishwives but who would dare offend them while walking through the fish market.
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Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.
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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
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There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.
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Chance is a nickname for Providence.
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Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.
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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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Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.
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The contact of two epidermises.
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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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It is among uneducated women that we may look for the most confirmed gossips. Goethe tells us there is nothing more frightful than bustling ignorance.
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A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.
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Change, change,--we all covet change.
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He who disguises tyranny, protection, or even benefits under the air and name of friendship reminds me of the guilty priest who poisoned the sacramental bread.
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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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We need to be just before we are generous, as we need shirts before ruffles.
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False modesty is the most decent of all lies.
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