Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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.

— Anatole France

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

— Anatole France

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.

— Anatole France

The pseudonym for God when He did not want to sign.

— Anatole France

Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He does not want to sign His name.

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

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

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

— Anatole France

It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

— Anatole France

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

— Anatole France

Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.

— Anatole France

It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.

— Anatole France

It is almost 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 difference between right and wrong.

— Anatole France

Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

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

I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.

— Anatole France

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

— Anatole France

It is better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.

— Anatole France

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you cannot understand them.

— Anatole France

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards; and curiosity itself can be vivid and wholesome only in proportion as the mind is contented and happy.

— Anatole France