Anatole France Quotes

Anatole France shares sly, witty reflections on human folly and the joy of irony.

75 quotes

1. Il est dans la nature humaine de penser sagement et d'agir d'une facon absurde.

2. Il est sage de ne mettre ni crainte, ni esperance dans l'avenir incertain.

3. Le christianisme a beaucoup fait pour l'amour en en faisant un peche.

4. La souffrance! quelle divine meconnu! Nous lui devons tout ce qu'il ya de bon en nous, tout ce qui donne du prix a la vie; nous lui devons la pitie, nous lui devons le courage, nous lui devons toutes les vertus.

5. En art comme en amour, l'instinct suffit.

6. S'il fallait absolument choisir, j'aimerais mieux faire une chose immorale qu'une chose cruelle.

7. La majestueuse egalite des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.

8. II n'ya que les pauvres gens qui payent comptant. Ce n'est pas par vertu; c'est parce qu'on ne leur fait pas credit.

9. L'ignorance et l'erreur sont necessaires a la vie comme le pain et l'eau.

10. Ce sont les hommes qui n'aiment pas les femmes qui s'interessent a la toilette des femmes. Et les hommes qui aiment les femmes ne voient pas seulement comment elles sont habillees.

11. Dans tout Etat police, la richesse est chose sacree; dans les democraties elle est la seule chose sacree.

12. L'innocence, le plus souvent, est un bonheur et non pas une vertu.

13. Nous avons des remedes pour faire parler les femmes; nous n'en avons pas pour les faire taire.

14. Il ne savait rien, ne voulait rien savoir, en quoi il se conformait a son genie, dont il ne surchargeait point l'aimable petitesse, et son heureux instinct lui conseillait de comprendre peu plutot que de comprendre mal.

15. Un conte sans amour est comme du boudin sans moutarde; c'est chose insipide.

16. Il est a peu pres impossible de constituer systematiquement une morale naturelle. La nature n'a pas de principes. Elle ne nous fournit aucune raison de croire que la vie humaine est respectable. La nature, indifferente, ne fait nulle distinction du bien et du mal.

17. De toutes les definitions de l'homme, la plus mauvaise me parait celle qui en fait un animal raisonnable.

18. Quand une chose a ete dite et bien dite, n'ayez aucun scrupule, prenez-la, copiez.

19. On devient bon ecrivain comme on devient bon menuisier: en rabotant ses phrases.

20. If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

21. Je ne sais pas de lecture plus facile, plus attrayante, plus douce que celle d'un catalogue.

22. Les livres d'histoire qui ne mentent pas sont tout fort maussades.

23. Les aimants qui aiment bien n'ecrivent pas leur bonheur.

24. Savoir n'est rien, imaginer est tout.

25. Il se flattait d'etre sans prejuges, et cette pretention etait a elle seule un gros prejuge.

26. Les hommes qui se sont occupes du bonheur des peuples ont rendu leurs proches bien malheureux.

27. L'homme est ainsi fait qu'il ne se delasse d'un travail que par un autre.

28. J'ai toujours prefere la folie des passions a la sagesse de l'indifference.

29. Les gens qui n'eurent point de faiblesses sont terribles; on n'a point de prise sur eux.

30. L'art d'enseigner n'est que l'art d'eveiller la curiosite des jeunes ames pour la satisfaire ensuite.

31. Tous les changements, meme les plus souhaites ont leur melancolie, car ce que nous quittons, c'est une partie de nous-memes; il faut mourir a une vie pour entrer dans une autre.

32. C'est d'actes et non d'idees que vivent les peuples.

33. On reproche aux gens de parler d'eux-memes. C'est pourtant le sujet qu'ils traitent le mieux.

34. Les plus beaux mots du monde ne sont que de vains sons, si on ne les comprend pas.

35. Le bon critique est celui qui raconte les aventures de son ame au milieu des chefs-d'?uvre.

36. L'ironie, c'est la gaiete de la reflexion et la joie de la sagesse.

37. 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 do know and what you don't.

38. Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

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

40. Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

41. The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.

42. The books that everybody admires are those nobody reads.

43. The impotence of God is infinite.

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

45. To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.

46. Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.

47. Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign.

48. 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.

49. It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem - and in my esteem age is not estimable.

50. No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, none ever will.

51. Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

52. Silence is the wit of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise.

53. The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

54. Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!

55. 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.

56. An education isnt how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. Its being able to differentiate between what you know and what you dont.

57. We have drugs to make women speak, but none to keep them silent.

58. It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion.

59. The law ... allows rich as well as poor to sleep under bridges.

60. The future is a convenient place for dreams.

61. The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.

62. 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.'

63. 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.

64. 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.

65. Without the utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked;...utopia is the principle of all progress, adn the essay into a better world.

66. 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.

67. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.

68. It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.

69. To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.

70. Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.

71. The Kingdom of Heaven is a military autocracy and there is no public opinion in it.

72. A good critic is the man who describes his adventures among masterpieces.

73. Love is like a rose. It looks beautiful on the outside...but there is always pain hidden somewhere.

74. There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.

75. Universal peace will be realized, not because man will become better, but because a new order of things, a new science, new economic necessities, will impose peace.