Nicolas Chamfort Quotes
The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.
Chamfort, Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas. Products of the Perfected Civilization: Selected Writings of Chamfort. Translated by W. S. Merwin, Macmillan, 1969, p. 101.
The congressman was a Biblical literalist. In this case he extended this method of knowing what is or is not potentially dangerous, to the absence of what the Bible says rather than a Biblical statement, If the Bible did not mention such a major event as global warming, it would not come to pass. Scientists are particularly distressed with this kind of analysis observing that there is nothing in the Bible abount nuclear energy, quantum mechanics, or black holes.
As a slave holder himself, this was a dramatic statement. Slavery was immoral, God’s justice will not be on the white slave owners side, a slave revolt or other event could occur and change things radically. One great puzzlement of American history has been why Jefferson, who wrote so eloquently against slavery and predicted the disaster that would come. would himself keep his slaves and never free them as George Washington did. Some argue that he was so broke financially, that he could not afford to free them.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas, also known as Chamfort, was a French writer, best known for his witty epigrams and aphorisms. He was secretary to Louis XVI's sister, and of the Jacobin club.
