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
writing expression obscure
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.
mind together narrow-minds
Narrow waists and narrow minds go together.
history attention anecdotes
There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.
misanthrope mankind forty
Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.
laughter healthy trying
If taking vitamins doesn't keep you healthy enough, try more laughter: The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed.
nature kindness men
A man without nobility cannot have kindliness; he can only have good nature.
ridiculous wit
It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.
names vanity giving
Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.
passion exaggerated
All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.
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.
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 philosopher chemist
The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.
color society chameleon
We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other.
stupidity absolutes
Stupidity would not be absolute stupidity did it not fear intelligence.