Anatole France Quotes & Sayings

Armenia is dying, but it will survive. The little blood that is left is precious blood that will give birth to a heroic generation. A nation that does not want to die, does not die. April 9, 1916 Sorbonne — Anatole France

In every well-governed state wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing. — Anatole France

We live between two dense clouds; the forgetting of what was and the uncertainty of what will be. — Anatole France

A dictionary is merely the universe arranged in alphabetical order. — Anatole France

It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks. — Anatole France

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom. — Anatole France

Human affairs inspire in noble hearts only two feelings-admiration or pity. — Anatole France

We thank God for having created this world, and praise Him for having made another, quite different one, where the wrongs of this one are corrected. — Anatole France

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. — Anatole France

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. — Anatole France

Christianity has done a great deal for love by making a sin of it. — Anatole France

The adventure of the soul among the masterpieces. — Anatole France

What men call civilization is the condition of present customs; what they call barbarism, the condition of past ones. — Anatole France

For a man's life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness. — Anatole France

America, where thanks to Congress, there are forty million laws to enforce the Ten Commandments. — Anatole France

We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we yearn for another that will be eternal. — Anatole France

We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book. — Anatole France

Irony and pity are two good counselors: one, in smiling, makes life pleasurable; the other, who cries, makes it sacred. — Anatole France

The heart errs like the head; its errors are not any the less fatal, and we have more trouble getting free of them because of their sweetness. — Anatole France

The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it. — Anatole France

He left Penguinia impoverished and depopulated. The flower of the insula perished in his wars. At the time of his fall there were left in our country none but the hunchbacks and cripples from whom we are descended. But he gave us glory." "He made you pay dearly for it!" "Glory never costs too much," replied my guide. — Anatole France

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull. — Anatole France

We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best. — Anatole France

The duty of literature is to note what counts, and to light up what is suited to the light. If it ceases to choose and to love, it becomes like a woman who gives herself without preference. — Anatole France

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me. — Anatole France

Word-carpentry is like any other kind of carpentry: you must join your sentences smoothly. — Anatole France

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. — Anatole France

To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act. — Anatole France

I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life. — Anatole France

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads. — Anatole France

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.' — Anatole France

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. — Anatole France

Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe. — Anatole France

The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious — Anatole France

Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not. — Anatole France

I see only one solution," said St. Augustine. "The penguins will go to hell." "But they have no soul," observed St. Irenaeus. "It is a pity"" sighed Tertullian. — Anatole France

He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and his pretension itself is a very great prejudice. — Anatole France

The power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes lost with age, like all the other energies of man. — Anatole France

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. — Anatole France

Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He'd rather not sign His own name. — Anatole France

All writers of confessions from Augustine on down, have always remained a little in love with their sins. — Anatole France

The majestic equality of the law forbids rich and poor alike from pissing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread. — Anatole France

Unhappiness does make people look stupid. — Anatole France

Nothing spoils a confession like repentance. — Anatole France

People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them. — Anatole France

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads. — Anatole France

It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion. — Anatole France

A good critic is the man who describes his adventures among masterpieces. — Anatole France

It is by believing in roses that you make them bloom. — Anatole France

It is good to collect things, it is better to take walks. — Anatole France

But my foreknowledge must not encroach upon their free will. "In order not to impair human liberty, I will be ignorant of what I know, I will thicken upon my eyes the veils I have pierced, and in my blind clearsightedness I will let myself be surprised by what I have foreseen. — Anatole France

The Christian state," said St. Cornelius, "is not without serious inconveniences for a penguin. In it the birds are obliged to work out their own salvation. How can they succeed? The habits of birds are, in many points, contrary to the commandments of the Church, and the penguins have no reason for changing theirs. I mean that they are not intelligent enough to give up their present habits and assume better. — Anatole France

Distrust even Mathematics; albeit so sublime and highly perfected, we have here a machine of such delicacy it can only work in vacuo, and one grain of sand in the wheels is enough to put everything out of gear. One shudders to think to what disaster such a grain of sand may bring a Mathematical brain. Remember Pascal. — Anatole France

It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be. — Anatole France

He prided himself on being a man without prejudice, and this itself is a very great prejudice. — Anatole France

The law in its majesty prohibits rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges. — Anatole France

A tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid. — Anatole France

It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg. — Anatole France

It is possible that these millions of suns, along with thousands of millions more we cannot see, make up altogether but a globule of blood or lymph in the veins of an animal, of a minute insect, hatched in a world of whose vastness we can frame no conception, but which nevertheless would itself, in proportion to some other world, be no more than a speck of dust. — Anatole France

The mania of thinking renders one unfit for every activity. — Anatole France

If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one. — Anatole France

Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest. — Anatole France

As to the kind of truth one finds in books, it is a truth that enables us sometimes to discern what things are not, without ever enabling us to discover what they are. — Anatole France

Have we not seen many times indeed human beings who, poor and naked, prostrate themselves before all the phantoms of fear, and rather than follow the teaching of well-disposed demons, obey the commandments of cruel demiurges? — Anatole France

But canst thou only die, withered embryo, foetus steeped in gall and scalding tears? Miserable abortion, dost thou think thou canst taste death, thou who hast never known life? If only God exists, that he may damn me. I hope for it. I wish it. God, I hate Thee! dost Thou hear? Overwhelm me with Thy damnation. To compel Thee to, I spit in Thy face. I must find an eternal hell, to exhaust the eternity of rage which consumes me. — Anatole France

as regards ownership the right of the first occupier is uncertain and badly founded. The right of conquest, on the other hand, rests on more solid foundations. It is the only right that receives respect since it is the only one that makes itself respected. — Anatole France

Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark. — Anatole France

Time deals gently only with those who take it gently. — Anatole France

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. — Anatole France

Theologians and philosophers, who make God the creator of Nature and the architect of the Universe, reveal Him to us as an illogical and unbalanced Being. They declare He is benevolent because they are afraid of Him, but they are forced to admit the truth that His ways are vicious and beyond understanding. They attribute a malignity to Him seldom to be found in any human being. And that is how they get human beings to worship Him. For our miserable species would never lavish worship on a just and benevolent God from whom they had nothing to fear. — Anatole France

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. — Anatole France

Jealousy is a virtue of democracies which preserves them from tyrants. — Anatole France

Insane Europeans who plot to cut each others' throats, now that one and the same civilisation enfolds and unites them all! — Anatole France

Suffering - how divine it is, how misunderstood! 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. — Anatole France

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living. — Anatole France

This book bore the label R>3214 VIII/2. And this painful truth was suddenly borne in upon the mind of Monsieur Sariette: to wit, that the most scientific system of numbering will not help to find a book if the book is no longer in its place. — Anatole France

Lack of understanding is a great power. Sometimes it enables men to conquer the world. — Anatole France

In truth man is made rather to eat ices than to pore over old texts. — Anatole France

God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot; I love the Hell which formed my genius. I love the Earth where I have done some good, if it be possible to do any good in this fearful world where beings live but by rapine. — Anatole France

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself. — Anatole France

We find it hard to picture to ourselves the state of mind of a man of older days who firmly believed that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved around it. He could feel beneath his feet the writhings of the damned amid the flames; very likely he had seen with his own eyes and smelt with his own nostrils the sulphurous fumes of Hell escaping from some fissure in the rocks. Looking upwards, he beheld ... the incorruptible firmament, wherein the stars hung like so many lamps. — Anatole France

Within every one of us there lives both a Don Quixote and a
Sancho Panza to whom we hearken by turns; and though Sancho
most persuades us, it is Don Quixote that we find ourselves obliged
to admire ... — Anatole France

The future is hidden even from those who make it. — Anatole France

Good angels are fallible ... they sin every day and fall from Heaven like flies. — Anatole France

It's not by amusing oneself that one learns. — Anatole France

Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue. — Anatole France

For all armies are the finest in the world. The second finest army, if one could exist, would be in a notoriously inferior position; it would be certain to be beaten. It ought to be disbanded at once. Therefore, all armies are the finest in the world. — Anatole France

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you can't understand them. The best sentence? The shortest. — Anatole France

So long as society is founded on injustice, the function of the laws will be to defend injustice. And the more unjust they are the more respectable they will seem. — Anatole France

There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women. — Anatole France

Our passions are ourselves. — Anatole France

Those who have given themselves the most concern about the happiness of peoples have made their neighbors very miserable. — Anatole France

Men are not created to know, men are not created to understand ... and our illusions increase with our knowledge. — Anatole France

A simple style is like white light. Although complex, it does not appear to be so. — Anatole France

Until you have loved an animal, part of your soul will have remained dormant. — Anatole France

What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation. — Anatole France

The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts. — Anatole France

Change is the essence of life. — Anatole France

I do not know any reading more easy, more fascinating, more delightful than a catalogue. — Anatole France

We love truly only those we love even in their weakness and their poverty. To forbear, to forgive, to console, that alone is the science of love. — Anatole France