"To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe." —Anatole France on Accomplishments
"It is by acts and not by ideas that people live." —Anatole France on Action
"It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem -and in my esteem age is not estimable." —Anatole France on Age
"There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant." —Anatole France on Bargain
"Nothing spoils a confession like repentance." —Anatole France on Confession
"If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one." —Anatole France on Cruelty
"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the young mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards." —Anatole France on Curiosity
"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." —Anatole France on Education
"Nine tenths of education is encouragement." —Anatole France on Education
"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. -Anatole France." —Anatole France on Education
"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." —Anatole France on Education
"I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom." —Anatole France on Enthusiasm
"That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future." —Anatole France on Future
"History books that contain no lies are extremely dull." —Anatole France on History
"It is by acts, and not by ideas that people live." —Anatole France on Ideas
"A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance." —Anatole France on Ignorance
"A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance." —Anatole France on Ignorance
"We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal." —Anatole France on Immortality
"I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom." —Anatole France on Indifference
"It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be." —Anatole France on Innocence
"Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom." —Anatole France on Irony
"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." —Anatole France on Law
"How noble the law, in its majestic equality, that both the rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread!" —Anatole France on Law
"I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life." —Anatole France on Poverty
"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." —Anatole France on Reincarnation
"Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labour by taking up another." —Anatole France on Relaxation
"It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion." —Anatole France on Thinking
"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever." —Anatole France on Want
"The finest words in the world are only vain sounds, if you cannot comprehend them." —Anatole France on Word
"You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences." —Anatole France on Writer
Wikiquote Article on Anatole France
Anatole France (16 April1844 â" 12 October1924), born Jacques Anatole François Thibault, was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1921)
Suffering â" 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.
Le Jardin d'Ãpicure [Epicure's Garden] (1894)
En art comme en amour, l'instinct suffit.
In art as in love, instinct is enough.
Le Jardin d'Ãpicure [The Epicure's Garden] (1894)
Sâil fallait absolument choisir, jâaimerais mieux faire une chose immorale quâune chose cruelle.
If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one.
Variant: How noble the law, in its majestic equality, that both the rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread!
He had no knowledge and had no desire to acquire any; wherein he conformed to his genius whose engaging fragility he forbore to overload; his instinct fortunately telling him that it was better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.
It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.
When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple: take it and copy it.
As quoted in Anatole France en pantoufles by Jean-Jacques Brousson (1924); published in English as Anatole France Himself: A Boswellian Record by His Secretary, Jean-Jacques Brousson (1925), trans. John Pollock [Read Books, 2007, ISBN 1-406-75172-3], p. 56
You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.
As quoted in Anatole France en pantoufles by Jean-Jacques Brousson (1924); published in English as Anatole France Himself: A Boswellian Record by His Secretary, Jean-Jacques Brousson (1925), trans. John Pollock, p. 85
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
As quoted in Listening and Speaking : A Guide to Effective Oral Communication (1954) by Ralph G. Nichols and Thomas R. Lewis, p. 74
Also misattributed to Bertrand Russell, by Lawrence J. Peters, in The Peter Prescription : How To Make Things Go Right (1976), but he subsequently attributed to France in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977).
Derived variant: If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
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.
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.
Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.
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.
Nine tenths of education is encouragement.
The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
Variant: The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
Variant: We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.
The books that everybody admires are those nobody reads.
The impotence of God is infinite.
There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.
To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.
Variant: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
Misattributed
Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign.
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.
Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion" (1927), ch. 8, from The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey and Anna Freud (London, Hogarth Press, 1961), vol. 21, p. 44
It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem â" and in my esteem age is not estimable.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, from The Works of Lord Byron, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1901), vol. V: Letters and Journals, ch. XXIII: "Detached Thoughts" (1821-10-15 - 1822-05-18), paragraph 72 (p. 445)
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, none ever will.
No government ought to be without censors: & where the press is free, no one ever will.
Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!
Jeremy Taylor, "Apples of Sodom," Part II, Sermon XX of Twenty-Five Sermons for the Winter Half-Year, Preached at Golden Grove (1653)
Variant: 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!
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.
