Quotes from Anatole France

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.

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

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

Never lend books - nobody ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those which people have lent me.

Nothing spoils a confession like repentance.

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

One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past or in complaining against the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the essence of life.

People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way to take advantage of them

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.

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

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

The impotence of God is infinite.

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 pseudonym for God when He did not want to sign.

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.

There is a certain impertinance in allowing oneself to be burned for an opinion.

To die for an idea is to place a pretty high price on conjecture.

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

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