What I learned, I no longer know. What little I still know, I have guessed.

The line appears in a posthumous collection of Chamfort’s moral reflections published shortly after his death. Later English-language books and quotation collections sometimes reassigned a similar wording to Talleyrand, likely because he circulated a variant among conversational maxims.

It’s a self-deprecating comment about how formal education fades from memory, while whatever understanding remains feels like it comes from inference or intuition rather than retained instruction.

Ce que j’ai appris, je ne le sais plus. Le peu que je sais encore, je l’ai deviné.

Tout ce que j’ai appris, je l’ai oublié; ce que je sais, je l’ai déviné.

What I have been taught, I have forgotten; what I know, I have guessed.