This edition gives the first scientific publication of the 18th-century French moralist Chamfort (1740-1791) in Russian. Chamfort owns aphorisms that have survived to this day, although everyone has long forgotten about his authorship. It was he who came up with the name for the brochure of Abbot Sieyes: "What is the third estate? Everything. What does it own? Nothing." And he threw the slogan "Peace to the huts, war to the palaces." Unlike Montaigne, Larochefuco, Labruyere, he argued that a person changes under the influence of the social system under which he lives. Thus, Chamfort was the first to introduce social categories into French moralism. The second part of the book - "Characters and Anecdotes" - is a collection of historical anecdotes. From the point of view of Chamfort, any despotic system only deserves such a story. These jokes have nothing to do with Labruyer's "Characters." Chamfort did not set himself the task of giving any generalized types. His goal was not to show a gallery of portraits or even cartoons, but only a series of snapshots.