Nicolas Chamfort

Society is composed of two great classes those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.

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

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.

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

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

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

Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.

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

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

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 art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society.

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.

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