Nicolas Chamfort Quotes

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.

Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.

Happiness is not easy to find. It's very difficult to find it in yourself — and impossible to find anywhere else.

All that I've learned, I've forgotten. The little that I still know, I've guessed.

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.

A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.

There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.

In order not to find life unbearable, you must accept two things: the ravages of time and the injustices of man.

And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead. [last words]

Every day I add to the list of things I refuse to discuss. The wiser the man, the longer the list.

Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.

Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.

When you want to be well-liked in the world, you have to let a lot of people teach you things that you know and they don't.

Don't you know that we must always have a place where we never go but where we think we'd be happy if we did?

There is a melancholy that stems from greatness of mind.

He who leaves the game wins it.

Pleasure can be supported by an illusion, but happiness rests upon truth.

It is passion that makes man live; wisdom makes one only last.

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.

If you must love your neighbor as yourself, it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbor.

It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful.

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

Having lots of ideas doesn’t mean you’re clever, any more than having lots of soldiers means you’re a good general.

The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed

Paris, a city of gaieties and pleasures, where four-fifths of the inhabitants die of grief.

We ought to be able to combine opposites: the love of goodness with indifference to other people's opinions, a liking for work with indifference to fame, concern for our health with indifference to life.

Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.

All is true and all is false in love; love is the only thing about which it is impossible to say anything absurd." Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort

There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools

In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen, in small things they show themselves as they are

Ce que j'ai appris, je l'ai oublié ; ce que je sais, je l'ai inventé.

In a country where everyone is trying to be noticed, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.

La plus perdue de toutes les journées est celle où l'on n'a pas ri.

Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking

If we would please in society, we must be prepared to be taught many things we know already by people who do not know them.

An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living.

The moment when one loses the illusions and passions of youth often leaves regrets, but sometimes we hate the spell that deceived us. So it is that Armida burns and razes the palace where she was enchanted.

On n'est point un homme d'esprit pour avoir beaucoup d'idées, comme on n'est pas un bon général pour avoir beaucoup de soldats.

Feeling creates thought, men willingly agree; but they will not so willingly agree that thought creates feeling, though this is scarcely less true.

Tout homme qui, à quarante ans, n'est pas misantrophe, n'a jamais aimé.

In great matters, men reveal themselves as they find it appropriate to do so; but, in small matters, they reveal themselves as they truly are.

Quand on veut plaire dans le monde, il faut se résoudre à se laisser apprendre beaucoup de choses qu'on sait par des gens qui les ignorent.

L'amour, tel qu'il existe dans la société, n'est que l'échange de deux fantaisies et le contact de deux épidermes.

Sometimes when a person sees the roguery of poor people and the thievery of people in high positions, he is tempted to regard society as a forest full of robbers, the most dangerous of which are the policemen that are set up to stop the others.

We must know how to perform the foolishness our characters require.

El día más desperdiciado es uno sin reír. NICOLAS CHAMFORT, ESCRITOR

To have ties to people who are considerable or even illustrious can no longer be considered a merit for anyone, in a country where a person often pleases others with his vices, and where he is sometimes sought after because of how laughable he is.

Mám rád samotu. Jsem víc zvyklý na své vady než na cizí.

C'est une belle allégorie, dans la Bible, que cet arbre de la science du bien et du mal qui produit la mort. Cet emblème ne veut-il pas dire que lorsqu'on a pénétré le fond des choses, la pert des illusions amène la mort de l'âme, c'est-à-dire un désintéressement complet sur tout ce qui touches les autres hommes?

Ah dostum, yüreğinin kırılmak ya da çelikten olmak zorunda olduğu bu dünyanın sonuna geldim.

Il faut choisir d'aimer les femmes ou de les connaître: Il n'y a pas de milieu.

بهتر است انسان‌ها را همانطور ک هستند بپذیریم، ن اینکه تصویر غیرواقعی از آنچه نیستند بسازیم.

The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.

L'homme, dans l'état actuel de la société, me paraît plus corrompu par sa raison que par ses passions. Ses passions (j'entendes ici celles qui appartiennent à l'homme primitif) ont conservé, dans l'ordre social, le peu de nature qu'on y retrouve encore.

L’amour, tel qu’il existe dans la Société, n’est que l’échange de deux fantaisies et le contact de deux épidermes.

Il y a à parier que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise, car elle a convenu au plus grand nombre.