Anatole France Quotes
Anatole France was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He is considered one of the most famous and accomplished French authors. His works are noted for their elegance, wit, and pessimistic satire of contemporary society. His quotes are thought-provoking and engaging, and they offer a unique perspective on life. Here are some of the best quotes from Anatole France that will make you think about life in a different way.
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Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.
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To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
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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!
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The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.
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It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.
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Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.
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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.
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Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.
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Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.
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That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.
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What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
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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.
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
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A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.
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Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.
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Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.
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The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
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Nine tenths of education is encouragement.
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The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
Anatole France
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When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
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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.
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It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.
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I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.
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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.
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The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.
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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.
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Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.
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The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
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An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.
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Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
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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.
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It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.
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To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.
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If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.
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The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.
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Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
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It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
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Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
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Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.
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Silence is the wit of fools.
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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.
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History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.
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War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.
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We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.
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Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.
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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.
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In art as in love, instinct is enough.
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Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women’s clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.
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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.
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One thing above all gives charm to men’s thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me.
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There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.
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Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.
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I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.
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The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.
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It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.
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We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.
Anatole France
