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Amour, folie aimable; ambition, sottise sérieuse.

— Nicolas Chamfort

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Notes from Wikiquote

Love, a pleasant folly; ambition, a serious stupidity. | Maxims and Considerations, #158

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Ambition

More quotes by Nicolas Chamfort

Anyone whose needs are small seems threatening to the rich, because he’s always ready to escape their control.

There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.

The Cynic's Breviary : Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort (1902)

There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.

Your intelligence often bears the same relation to your heart as the library of a château does to its owner.

The only thing that stops God sending a second Flood is that the first one was useless.

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Emil Cioran The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.

Jean de La Bruyère Les Caractères (1688)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Nicolas Chamfort (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.