“I do not think altogether the worse of a book for having survived the author a generation or two. I have more confidence in the dead than the living.” — Hazlitt
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, Oeuvres complètes de Chamfort, Vol. II (Paris: Chaumerot Jeune, 1824), p. 5. My translation:
People were refuting some opinion or other that Mr. M. had of a work, telling him the public judged it differently: "The public! The public!" he said. "How many idiots does it take to make a public?"