Anatole France Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

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

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.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.

I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.

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

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

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

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.

Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them

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.

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

Sometimes one day in a difference place gives you more than ten years of a life at home.

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

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

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.

Silence is the wit of fools.

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!

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.

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

True education is the ability to discern the difference between what you do know and what you don't.

Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.

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

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

Intelligent women always marry fools

To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.

He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

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

The more you say, the less they remember.

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

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

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

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

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

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

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.

A tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid.

Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.