Quotations From SÉBASTIEN-ROCH NICOLAS DE CHAMFORT

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• 1.

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

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 164 (1796, trans. 1926).
  
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• 2.

  Conviction is the conscience of intellect.

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 151 (1796, trans. 1926).
• 3.

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

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 113 (1796), trans. by E. Powys Mathers (1926).
  
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• 4.

  Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 2, no. 487 (1796), trans. by E. Powys Mathers (1926).
  
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• 5.

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

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 163, trans. by E. Powys Mathers (1926).
  
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• 6.

  People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess.

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 2, no. 522 (1796, trans. 1926).
  
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• 7.

  Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 2, no. 342 (1796, trans. 1926).
  
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• 8.

  A man without nobility cannot have kindliness; he can only have good nature.

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 116 (1796, trans. 1926).
  
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• 9.

  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.

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 2 (1796, trans. 1926).
• 10.

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

  Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer, wit. Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 92 (1796).