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“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
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“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
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“Public opinion is the worst of all opinions.”
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“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.”
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“Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.”
― Maximes et Pensées: Caractères et Anecdotes
― Maximes et Pensées: Caractères et Anecdotes
“Happiness is not easy to find. It's very difficult to find it in yourself — and impossible to find anywhere else.”
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“Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.”
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“All that I've learned, I've forgotten. The little that I still know, I've guessed.”
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“A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.”
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“There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.”
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“In order not to find life unbearable, you must accept two things: the ravages of time and the injustices of man.”
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“And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead. [last words]”
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“If it wasn't for me, I'd do brilliantly.”
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“Every day I add to the list of things I refuse to discuss. The wiser the man, the longer the list.”
― Maximes et Pensées: Caractères et Anecdotes
― Maximes et Pensées: Caractères et Anecdotes
“Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.”
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“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?”
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“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.”
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“Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.”
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“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.”
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“There is a melancholy that stems from greatness of mind.”
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“Pleasure can be supported by an illusion, but happiness rests upon truth.”
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“He who leaves the game wins it.”
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“It is passion that makes man live; wisdom makes one only last.”
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“One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be an idiocy, because it has been able to appeal to a majority.”
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“If you must love your neighbor as yourself, it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbor.”
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“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.”
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“Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.”
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“Having lots of ideas doesn’t mean you’re clever, any more than having lots of soldiers means you’re a good general.”
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“The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed”
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“Paris, a city of gaieties and pleasures, where four-fifths of the inhabitants die of grief.”
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