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Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.

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
Generals
Intact
City
Leave
Cities
Unskillful
Take
Citadel
Like
Citadels
Benefactors

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Man reaches each stage of his life as a novice.
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Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.
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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 living and in seeing other men, the heart must break or become as bronze.
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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.
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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 modicum of discord is the very spice of courtship.
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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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Though we best know and cannot deny our imperfections, it is not for us to lose our self-reliance and true manhood.
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There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.
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In the library of the world men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, and the binding the time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.
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If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly.
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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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Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours it is a palliation death is the remedy.
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There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.
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