Nicolas Chamfort
Nicolas Chamfort
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas, also known as Chamfort, was a French writer, best known for his witty epigrams and aphorisms. He was secretary to Louis XVI's sister, and of the Jacobin club...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth6 April 1741
CountryFrance
men may literature
Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.
life men novices
Man reaches each stage of his life as a novice.
men victory gains
Woman's weakness, not man's merit, oftenest gains the suitor's victory.
men order library
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.
character mean men
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.
men order evil
In order to forgive reason for the evil it has wrought on the majority of men, we must imagine for ourselves what man would be without his reason. 'Tis a necessary evil.
passion past men
It is when their age of passions is past that great men produce their masterpieces, just as it is after volcanic eruptions that the soil is most fertile.
passion loss men
Nature in causing reason and the passions to be born at one and the same time apparently wished by the latter gift to distract man from the evil she had done him by the former, and by only permitting him to live for a few years after the loss of his passions seems to show her pity by early deliverance from a life that reduces him to reason as his sole resource.
men intelligent ideas
A man is not necessarily intelligent because he has plenty of ideas, any more than he is a good general because he has plenty of soldiers.
men oysters literature
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.
morning men toads
A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.
character men enjoy
Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known.
men small-changes quality
Too elevated qualities often unfit a man for society. We do not go to market with ingots, but with silver and small change.
passion men lasts
His passions make man live, his wisdom merely makes him last.