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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It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.
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A modicum of discord is the very spice of courtship.
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Love is the exchange of two fantasies and the contact of two skins.
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We must start human society from scratch as Francis Bacon said, we must recreate human understanding.
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To enjoy and give enjoyment, without injury to yourself or others this is true morality.
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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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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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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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In great matters, men behave as they are expected to in little ones, as they would naturally
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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.
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Be my brother or I will kill you.
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Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.
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Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians -- lack of power to pronounce the syllable, No. To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one's freedom and one's character.
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The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity.
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Pleasure can be supported by an illusion but happiness rests upon truth.
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Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.
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It is said of a lonely man that he does not appreciate the life of society. This is like saying he hates hiking because he dislikes walking in thick forest on a dark night.
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Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves.
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In living and in seeing other men, the heart must break or become as bronze.
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