Anatole France Quotes

The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.

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

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

Word-carpentry is like any other kind of carpentry: you must join your sentences smoothly.

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

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

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

What men call civilization is the condition of present customs; what they call barbarism, the condition of past ones.

To die for an idea is to set a rather high price upon conjecture.

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

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

The dog is a religious animal. In his savage state he worships the moon and the lights that float upon the waters. These are his gods to whom he appeals at night with long-drawn howls.

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.

For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free.

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

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

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

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

America, where thanks to Congress, there are forty million laws to enforce the Ten Commandments.

I am a physician. I keep a drug-shop of lies. I give relief, consolation. Can one console and relieve without lying? ... Only women and doctors know how necessary and how helpful lies are to men.

Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

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.

If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one.

In every well-governed state wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.

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

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

Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

Dictionary: The universe in alphabetical order.

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

The impotence of God is infinite.

Change is the essence of life.

The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.

Caress your phrase tenderly; it will end by smiling at you.

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you can't understand them. The best sentence? The shortest.

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

You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.

Until you have loved an animal, part of your soul will have remained dormant.

Unhappiness does make people look stupid.

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance. [The ability to focus on positives and distract your mind from negatives for at least a time is a necessary skill for being happy.]

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.

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

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.

Nothing spoils a confession like repentance.

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

We thank God for having created this world, and praise Him for having made another, quite different one, where the wrongs of this one are corrected.

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

Good angels are fallible ... they sin every day and fall from Heaven like flies.

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