Anatole France Quotes

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

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

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

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

J'ai toujours préféré la folie des passions à la sagesse de l'indifférence.

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

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.

Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. —Anatole France, Nobel Laureate, 1921

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

Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.

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

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

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

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

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

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

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

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

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

We chase dreams and embrace shadows.

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

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

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

All the good writers of confessions, from Augustine onwards, are men who are still a little in love with their sins.

Without lies, humanity would perish of despair and boredom

Our passions are ourselves.

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.

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

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

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

For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.

It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg.

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance?

There are forces, Lucius, infinitely more powerful than reason and science." " What are they?" asked Cotta. "Ignorance and folly," replied Aristaeus.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.’” Hyacinth looked up at her father. “What does that mean, Papa?” “It means that animals make our hearts happy in a very special way. A French man named Anatole France said that a long time ago.

Dictionary: The universe in alphabetical order.

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.

All changes, even the most longed for, must have their melancholy

Remember what Anatole France said about the dog masturbating on your leg--'Sure, it's honest, but who needs it?

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

The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity. ربما يكون الفضول هو اعظم فضائل البشر

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.

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.

No, let us not conquer the heavens. It is enough to have the power to do so. War engenders war, and victory defeat. God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot!‎

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.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

It is not customary to love what one has

Il est dans la nature humaine de penser sagement et d’agir d’une façon absurde.

I never go into the country for a change of air and a holiday. I always go instead into the eighteenth century.

...the adventure of the soul among the masterpieces.

EPILOGUE AUTHOR’S NOTE HISTORICAL NOTES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. —Anatole France, Nobel Laureate, 1921

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.

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...

La loi, dans un grand souci d'égalité, interdit aux riches comme aux pauvres de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.

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

I sought out the laws which govern nature, solid or ethereal, and after much pondering I perceived that the Universe had not been formed as its pretended Creator would have us believe; I knew that all that exists, exists of itself and not by the caprice of Iahveh; that the world is itself its own creator and the spirit its own God. Henceforth I despised Iahveh for his imposture, and I hated him because he showed himself to be opposed to all that I found desirable and good: liberty, curiosity, doubt.

Je tiens à mon imperfection comme à ma raison d'être.

فن التدريس ما هو إلا فن ايقاظ الفضول الطبيعي للعقل بغرض اشباع هذا الفضول فيما بعد.

If you have not loved an animal, your soul remains unawakened.

I am but a miserable sinner, but I have found, in my long life, that the cenobite has no foe worse than sadness".

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.

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

And the non-reading of books, you will object, should be characteristic of all collectors? This is news to me, you may say. It is not news at all. experts will bear me out when I say that it is the oldest thing in the world. Suffice it to quote the answer which Anatole France gave to a philistine who admired his library and then finished with the standard question, “And you have read all these books, Monsieur France?” “Not one-tenth of them. I don’t suppose you use your Sevres china every day?

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?

Each one dreams the dream of life in his own way. I have dreamed it in my library; and when the hour shall come in which I must leave this world, may it please God to take me from my ladder—from before my shelves of books!...

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

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

Great courage was required to engage in such an adventure. But George was in love and Freeheart was faithful. And as the most delightful of poets says “What cannot Friendship guided by sweet Love?

—Je porte dans mon coeur des villes innombrables et des déserts illimités. Et le mal, le mal et la mort, étendus sur cette immensité, la couvrent comme la nuit couvre la terre. Je suis à moi seul un univers de pensées mauvaises. Il parlait ainsi parce que le désir de la femme était en lui.

Epicure a dit: ou Dieu veut empêcher le mal et ne le peut, ou il le peut et ne le veut, ou il ne le peut ni ne le veut, ou il le veut et le peut. S'il le veut et ne le peut, il est impuissant; s'il le peut et ne le veut, il est pervers; s'il ne le peut ni ne le veut, il est impuissant et pervers; s'il le veut et le peut, que ne le fait-il, mon père ?

C'est dans l'absolue ignorance de notre raison d'être qu'est la racine de notre tristesse et de nos dégoûts.

Das Leben ist zu kurz und Proust zu lang...

The sadness of churches at night moves me; I feel in them the grandeur of nothingness.

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

Ah! Yes, the truth, that ingenious concoction of desirability of appearance.

The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious

آری ریشه همه بیچارگی‌ها درونی ما در خود ما است، ما تصور می‌کنیم بدبختی از بیرون به ما هجوم می‌آورد ولی این درون ماست که سرچشمه اصلی تلخی‌ها و خوشی‌های زندگی است.

I have always preferred the folly of the passions to the wisdom of indifference. But just because my own passions are not of that sort which burst out with violence to devastate and kill, the common mind is not aware of their existence. Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by them at times, and it has more than once been my fate to lose my sleep for the sake of a few pages written by some forgotten monk or printed by some humble apprentice of Peter Schöffer. And if these fierce enthusiasms are slowly being quenched in me, it is only because I am being slowly quenched myself. Our passions are ourselves. My old books are Me. I am just as old and thumb-worn as they are.

M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: "He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so much. He said, 'Not by being such a handsome young man as you. I wasn't in demand, and instead of going out I studied and learned'.

… true literature can exist only where it is created not by diligent and trustworthy officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics. But when a writer must be sensible and rigidly orthodox, when he must make himself useful today, when he cannot lash out at everyone like Swift or smile at everything like Anatole France, there can be no bronze literature, there can only be a paper literature, a newspaper literature, which is read today and used for wrapping soap tomorrow.” – Yevgeny Zamyatin.

La paix universelle se réalisera un jour non parce que les hommes deviendront meilleurs mais parce qu'un nouvel ordre, une science nouvelle, de nouvelles nécessités économiques leur imposeront l'état pacifique.

I must beg very serious persons not to read this. It is not written for them. It is not written for grave people who despise trifles and who always require to be instructed. I only venture to offer this to those who like to be entertained, and whose minds are both young and gay. Only those who are amused by innocent pleasures will read this to the end.

Късмет е псевдонимът, който Бог използва, когато не иска да се подпише със собственото си име.

You cry, "give us war!" You are visionaries. When will you become thinkers? The thinkers do not look for power and strength from any of the dreams that constitute military art: tactics, strategies, fortifications, artillery and all that rubbish. They do no believe in war, which is a fantasy; they believe in chemistry, which is a science. They know the way to put victory into an algebraic formula.

Alas!' replied Maître Mouche, 'she must be trained to take her part in the struggle of life. One does not come into this world simply to amuse oneself, and to do just what one pleases.' 'One comes into this world,' I responded, rather warmly, 'to enjoy what is beautiful and what is good, and to do as one pleases, when the things one wants to do are noble, intelligent, and generous. An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind. It is a teacher's duty to teach the pupil how to will.

Les vierges entonnaient le cantique de Zacharie: -- Béni soit le Seigneur, le dieu d'Israël. Brusquement la voix s'arrêta dans leur gorge. Elles avaient vu la face du moine et elles fuyaient d'épouvante en criant: -- Un vampire! un vampire! Il était devenu si hideux qu'en passant la main sur son visage, il sentit sa laideur.

Had I realized while on Earth," he said, "that Hell was such a delightful place, I should have put more faith in the teachings of religion. As it was, I actually doubted its existence. A foolish error, cherie. I am pleased to say that you have converted me completely." "I, too," observed Mr. Hamilton, helping himself to wine, "was something of an unbeliever in my time, and while never quite an atheist, like my arch-enemy Jefferson, I was still inclined to look upon Satan as merely a myth. Imagine my satisfaction to find him ruling a monarchy! You know I spent the greater part of my earthly existence fighting Mr. Jefferson and his absurd democratic ideas and now look at the damn country! Run by morons!

Ignorance is the necessary condition, i do not say of happiness, but of life itself. If we knew everything, we could not endure existence a single hour. The sentiments that make it sweet to us, or at any rate tolerable, spring from a falsehood, and are fed on illusions. If, like God, a man possessed the truth, the sole and perfect truth, and once let it escape out of his hands, the world would be annihilated there and then, and the universe melt away instantly like a shadow.

After the usual politeness, the Citizen Brotteaux resumed the thread of his discourse: 'Those who make a trade out of foretelling the future rarely grow rich. Their attempts to deceive are too easily found out and arouse detestation. And yet it would be necessary to detest them much, much more if they foretold the future correctly. 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.

Nature teaches us to devour each other and gives us the example of all the crimes and all the vices which the social state corrects or conceals. We should love virtue; but it is well to know that this is simply and solely a convenient expedient invented by men in order to live comfortably together. What we call morality is merely a desperate enterprise, a forlorn hope, on the part of our fellow creatures to reverse the order of the universe, which is strife and murder, the blind interplay of hostile forces. She destroys herself, and the more I think of things, the more convinced I am that the universe is mad. Theologians and philosophers, who make God the author of Nature and the architect of the universe, show Him to us as illogical and ill-conditioned. They declare Him benevolent, because they are afraid of Him, but they are forced to admit that His acts are atrocious. They attribute a malignity to him seldom to be found even in mankind. And that is how they get human beings to adore Him. For our miserable race would never lavish worship on just and benevolent deities from which they would have nothing to fear; they would feel only a barren gratitude for their benefits. Without purgatory and hell, your good God would be a mighty poor creature.