Nicolas Chamfort Quotes

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

I think I'm a decent person.

I'm a good person. I've led a good life.

Virtue is the first title of nobility.

Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others. It is not obedience to authority, and while it is often consistent with and reinforced by religious belief, it is not piety.

For me the most important thing is being a really good person, and that doesn’t depend on what you do on stage, that depends on how you treat people when you’re offstage.

Being in humaneness is good. If we select other goodness and thus are far apart from humaneness, how can we be the wise?

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.

If a man has no humaneness what can his propriety be like? If a man has no humaneness what can his happiness be like?

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

I think it's extremely difficult consistently being a decent human being.

Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.

Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.

Kindness, tolerance, integrity, modesty, generosity - these are attributes that events permit us. They are our holiday moods, and we are as proud of them as of the fine clothes we have hung away to wear on occasions.

'Humanity' is a name not merely for a species but also for a quality.

It's just as important to be a good human being as it is to be a good actor.

I'm a basically decent person.

If you're a good person, that's all that really matters.

Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.

Good moral character is the first essential in a man.

It is impossible to be just if one is not generous.

The good four. Honest with ourselves and with whatever is friend to us; courageous toward the enemy; generous toward the vanquished; polite-always that is how the four cardinal virtues want us.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Great hearts alone understand how much glory there is in being good.

If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.