Nicolas Chamfort Quotes - Page 4

A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure.

One must not hope to be more than one can be.

Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.

We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other.

Women bestow on friendship only what they borrow from love.

Obscurity and Innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor, in contact with the world.

Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.

People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess.

At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing.

There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.

Do you think that revolutions are made with rose water?

In a country where everyone strives for attention, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.

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.

A fool who has a flash of wit creates astonishment and scandal, like hack-horses setting out to gallop.

Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.

A lover is a man who tries to be more amiable than it is possible for him to be.

Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known.

Egotism is the tongue of vanity.

Narrow waists and narrow minds go together.

To possess a good cognomen is a long way on the road of success in life.

There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.

Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another.

Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.

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.

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.