NICOLAS CHAMFORT

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

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.

There are certain times when public opinion is the worst of all opinions.

Celebrity is the advantage of being known to people who we don't know, and who don't know us.

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.

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.

Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.

I have three kinds of friends: those who love me, those who pay no attention to me, and those who detest me.

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

All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.

When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws.

There is a melancholy that stems from greatness.

Do you think that revolutions are made with rose water?

Conviction is the conscience of the mind.

Preoccupation with money is the great test of small natures, but only a small test of great ones.

It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.

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

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

Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life.

The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.

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 only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.

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

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