Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.

Chamfort’s aphorism compresses a bleak Enlightenment-era skepticism about “progress” into a single judgment: when one surveys the record of states and empires, what stands out is not steady improvement but recurring violence—war, repression, famine, and cruelty—repeated under new banners. The line also reflects Chamfort’s own disillusionment as a sharp-tongued moralist who lived through the early French Revolution, a period that quickly turned from ideals of liberty to terror and political brutality. The quote’s force lies in its generalization: it challenges celebratory historical narratives and asks readers to measure civilizations by the suffering they produce as much as by their achievements.