Chamfort's best maxims
The top 3 according to 3 votes from people: Esteem is worth more than celebrity, respect more than renown, and honour more than glory. · Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, very few good remedies and almost no cures. · All passions exaggerate, and they are passions only because they exaggerate.. (Updated Mar 11, 2022.)
A caustic moralist of the last years of the Ancien Régime, Chamfort left Maxims and Thoughts published after his death in 1795: the most famous ones, on laughter, courtiers, books and life.
Automatically translated (original in Français). See the original
Top 12
-
1
Esteem is worth more than celebrity, respect more than renown, and honour more than glory.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
2
Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, very few good remedies and almost no cures.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
3
All passions exaggerate, and they are passions only because they exaggerate.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
4
The most wasted of all days is the one on which you have not laughed.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
5
Courtiers are paupers grown rich by begging.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
6
Most books today look as if they were made in a day from books read the day before.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
7
In great matters men show themselves as it suits them to appear; in small ones, as they are.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
8
Living is an illness that sleep relieves every sixteen hours; that is a palliative: death is the cure.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
9
The passions make a man live; wisdom only makes him last.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
10
Enjoy and give enjoyment, without harming yourself or anyone else: that, I believe, is the whole of morality.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
11
Learning the ills of nature, we despise death; learning those of society, we despise life.
Maxims and Thoughts.
-
12
The best philosophy towards the world is to combine the sarcasm of cheerfulness with the indulgence of contempt.
Maxims and Thoughts.
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
Is something missing?
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first!