Anatole France quotes:

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Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
One thing above all gives charm to men's thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me.
Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
The poor have to labour in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.
I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.
Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.
In art as in love, instinct is enough.
The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.
Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.
A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reform. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.
Dictionary: The universe in alphabetical order.
It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.
Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.
Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.
War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.
To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.
A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reform. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain."
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.
It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.
It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.
A dictionary is merely the universe arranged in alphabetical order.
Armenia is dying, but it will survive. The little blood that it still has left is precious blood that will give birth to a heroic generation. A nation that does not want to die, does not die.
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
I do not know any reading more easy, more fascinating, more delightful than a catalogue.
Caress your phrase tenderly; it will end by smiling at you.
Word-carpentry is like any other kind of carpentry: you must join your sentences smoothly.
There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.
To die for an idea is to set a rather high price upon conjecture.
History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.
Change is the essence of life.
Of all earthly creatures, humans alone have the power to choose. One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past nor in complaining about the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the very essence of life.
I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!
The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.
Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.
Intelligent women always marry fools
Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.
An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.
For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free.
A tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid.
Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.
Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.
Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He'd rather not sign His own name.
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them
An old philosopher said to Monsieur Coignard, a Reverend Father: 'You are a pig!' To which Abad Coignard answered: 'You flatter me, sir. But unfortunately, I'm only a man.'
Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest
We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
I never go into the country for a change of air and a holiday. I always go instead into the eighteenth century.
When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
There is only one science, love, one riches, love, only one policy, love. To make love is all the law and the prophets.
When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.
Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.
You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.
Truth possesses within herself a penetrating force, unknown alike to error and falsehood. I say 'truth' and you understand my meaning. For the beautiful words truth and justice need not to be defined in order to be understood in their true sense.
There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.
Ugly women may be naturally quite as capricious as pretty ones; but as they are never petted and spoiled, and as no allowances are made for them, they soon find themselves obliged either to suppress their whims or to hide them.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.
Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.
What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.
Nine tenths of education is encouragement.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.
Silence is the wit of fools.
Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.
I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.
Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned
Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.
Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark.
Until you have loved an animal, part of your soul will have remained dormant.
He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice.
Without the Utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked. It was Utopians who traced the lines of the first City.....Out of generous dreams come beneficial realities. Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into a better future.
We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book.
Sometimes one day in a difference place gives you more than ten years of a life at home.
It is remarkable how great an influence our clothes have on our moral state.
You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.
I am a physician. I keep a drug-shop of lies. I give relief, consolation. Can one console and relieve without lying? ... Only women and doctors know how necessary and how helpful lies are to men.
In every well-governed state wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.
True education is the ability to discern the difference between what you do know and what you don't.
The faculty of doubting is rare among men. A few choice spirits carry the germs of it in them, but these do not develop without training.
It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks.
If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one.
Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.
When a history book contains no lies it is always tedious.
The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you can't understand them. The best sentence? The shortest.
The more you say, the less they remember.
The law in its majesty prohibits rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges.
Justice is the sanction of established injustice.
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance. [The ability to focus on positives and distract your mind from negatives for at least a time is a necessary skill for being happy.]
Dog! When we first met on the highway of life, we came from the two poles of creation.... What can be the meaning of the obscure love for me that has sprung up in your heart?
Play is hand-to-hand encounter with Fate.
What we call strategy is mainly just crossing rivers on bridges and passing mountains though cols.
Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream
In order that knowledge be properly digested it must have been swallowed with a good appetite.
The impotence of God is infinite.
Those who have given themselves the most concern about the happiness of peoples have made their neighbors very miserable.
Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe.
The best sentence? The shortest.
We live between two dense clouds; the forgetting of what was and the uncertainty of what will be.

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