Quotes from Anatole France

He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and his pretension itself is a very great prejudice.

I never go into the country for a change of air and a holiday. I always go instead into the eighteenth century.

Je tiens à mon imperfection comme à ma raison d'être.

If you have not loved an animal, your soul remains unawakened.

Each one dreams the dream of life in his own way. I have dreamed it in my library; and when the hour shall come in which I must leave this world, may it please God to take me from my ladder—from before my shelves of books!...

No, let us not conquer the heavens. It is enough to have the power to do so. War engenders war, and victory defeat. God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot!?

Have we not seen many times indeed human beings who, poor and naked, prostrate themselves before all the phantoms of fear, and rather than follow the teaching of well-disposed demons, obey the commandments of cruel demiurges?

I must beg very serious persons not to read this. It is not written for them. It is not written for grave people who despise trifles and who always require to be instructed. I only venture to offer this to those who like to be entertained, and whose minds are both young and gay. Only those who are amused by innocent pleasures will read this to the end.

I am but a miserable sinner, but I have found, in my long life, that the cenobite has no foe worse than sadness".

Epicure a dit: ou Dieu veut empêcher le mal et ne le peut, ou il le peut et ne le veut, ou il ne le peut ni ne le veut, ou il le veut et le peut. S'il le veut et ne le peut, il est impuissant; s'il le peut et ne le veut, il est pervers; s'il ne le peut ni ne le veut, il est impuissant et pervers; s'il le veut et le peut, que ne le fait-il, mon père ?

We love truly only those we love even in their weakness and their poverty. To forbear, to forgive, to console, that alone is the science of love.

La loi, dans un grand souci d'égalité, interdit aux riches comme aux pauvres de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.

Je porte dans mon coeur des villes innombrables et des déserts illimités. Et le mal, le mal et la mort, étendus sur cette immensité, la couvrent comme la nuit couvre la terre. Je suis à moi seul un univers de pensées mauvaises. Il parlait ainsi parce que le désir de la femme était en lui.

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

You cry, "give us war!" You are visionaries. When will you become thinkers? The thinkers do not look for power and strength from any of the dreams that constitute military art: tactics, strategies, fortifications, artillery and all that rubbish. They do no believe in war, which is a fantasy; they believe in chemistry, which is a science. They know the way to put victory into an algebraic formula.

Great courage was required to engage in such an adventure. But George was in love and Freeheart was faithful. And as the most delightful of poets says "What cannot Friendship guided by sweet Love?

Insane Europeans who plot to cut each others' throats, now that one and the same civilisation enfolds and unites them all!

The majestic equality of the law forbids rich and poor alike from pissing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread.

Das Leben ist zu kurz und Proust zu lang...

Ignorance is the necessary condition, i do not say of happiness, but of life itself. If we knew everything, we could not endure existence a single hour. The sentiments that make it sweet to us, or at any rate tolerable, spring from a falsehood, and are fed on illusions. If, like God, a man possessed the truth, the sole and perfect truth, and once let it escape out of his hands, the world would be annihilated there and then, and the universe melt away instantly like a shadow.

The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious

C'est dans l'absolue ignorance de notre raison d'être qu'est la racine de notre tristesse et de nos dégoûts.

Les vierges entonnaient le cantique de Zacharie: -- Béni soit le Seigneur, le dieu d'Israël. Brusquement la voix s'arrêta dans leur gorge. Elles avaient vu la face du moine et elles fuyaient d'épouvante en criant: -- Un vampire! un vampire! Il était devenu si hideux qu'en passant la main sur son visage, il sentit sa laideur.

La paix universelle se réalisera un jour non parce que les hommes deviendront meilleurs mais parce qu'un nouvel ordre, une science nouvelle, de nouvelles nécessités économiques leur imposeront l'état pacifique.