Nicolas Chamfort

Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

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

Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth.

It is with happiness as with watches: the less complicated, the less easily deranged.

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

In living and in seeing other men, the heart must break or become as bronze.

And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead (suicide note)