Anatole France quotes

“We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.”

— Anatole France

“Nine tenths of education is encouragement.”

— Anatole France

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.”

— Anatole France

“History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.”

— Anatole France

“Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.”

— Anatole France

“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!”

— Anatole France

“Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.”

— Anatole France

“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.”

— Anatole France

“Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.”

— Anatole France

“There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.”

— Anatole France

“The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.”

— Anatole France

“What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.”

— Anatole France

“It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.”

— Anatole France

“Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.”

— Anatole France

“A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.”

— Anatole France

“Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.”

— Anatole France

“The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.”

— Anatole France

“When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.”

— Anatole France

“We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.”

— Anatole France

“Silence is the wit of fools.”

— Anatole France

“Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.”

— Anatole France

“The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.”

— Anatole France

“Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.”

— Anatole France

“An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.”

— Anatole France

“One thing above all gives charm to men's thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me.”

— Anatole France

“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.”

— Anatole France

“Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.”

— Anatole France

“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.”

— Anatole France

“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.”

— 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