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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.

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
Towards
Gaiety
Attitude
Adopt
Best
Sarcasm
World
Indulgence
Contempt
Union
Unions
Philosophical

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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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What one knows best is ... what one has learned not from books but as a result of books, through the reflections to which they have given rise.
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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
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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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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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Men of reason have enduredmen of passion have lived.
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And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead (suicide note)
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A woman is like your shadow follow her, she flies fly from her, she follows.
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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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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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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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Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another.
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In living and in seeing other men, the heart must break or become as bronze.
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Knowledge is boundless,--human capacity, limited.
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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.
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Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known.
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If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly.
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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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Intelligent people make many mistakes because they cannot believe the world is really as foolish as it is.
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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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