Quotes By 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 left me.

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

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

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

Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.

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.

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

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

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.

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.

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

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

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

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

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

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

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

The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.

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

That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.

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

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

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

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

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

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.

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

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