Anatole France

Quotes

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.
Never lend books - nobody ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those which people have lent me.
To die for an idea is to place a pretty high price upon conjectures.
If a million people say a foolish thing, is it still a foolish thing.
...it is not by reflection and intelligence, but by perception, that the highest and purest truths are attained.
The people who have no weakness are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.
He who lives little, changes little.
Who ever enters here, honors me; who ever does not-- pleases me.
Be gentle and learn how to suffer. When one suffers patiently, one suffers less.
No one gives as much as he who gives hope.
. . .everyone took an interest in the conversation, for each one was interested in what he or she said.
Our pains are no excuse for slandering the world.
Ignorance is a necessary condition of human happiness, and it must be owned that in most cases we fulfill it well. We know almost nothing about ourselves; absolutely nothing about our neighbors. Ignorance constitutes our peace of mind; self- deception our felicity.
I have no objection on principle to make to the guillotine. Nature, my only mistress and my only instructress, certainly offers me no suggestion to the effect that a man's life is of any value; on the contrary, she teaches in all kinds of ways that it is of none. The sole end and object of living beings seems to be to serve as food for other beings destined to the same end. Murder is of natural right; therefore, the penalty of death is lawful, on condition it is exercised from no motives either of virtue or of justice, but by necessity or to gain some profit thereby. However, I must have perverse intincts, for I sicken to see blood flow, and this defect of character all my philosophy has failed so far to correct.
I love reason, but I am no fanatic in my love. Reason is our guide and beacon-light; but when you have made a divinity of it, it will blind you and instigate you to crime.
Innocence more often than not is a piece of good fortune rather than a virtue.
To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.
To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
So long as society is founded on injustice, the function of the laws will be to defend injustice. And the more unjust they are the more respectable they will seem.
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 average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you cannot understand them.
To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.
Nothing spoils a confession like repentance.
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.
People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way to take advantage of them
The average man does not know what to do with his life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
The impotence of God is infinite.
It's not by amusing oneself that one learns.
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.
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.
It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.
Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.
When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.