War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.
— Anatole France
An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.
Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
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.
Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.
The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.
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.
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 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.
It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.
I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.
We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.
One thing above all gives charm to men's thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me.
Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.
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.
Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.
Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.
Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.
That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.
Nine tenths of education is encouragement.
There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.
When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.
It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
Silence is the wit of fools.
Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
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 truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.
What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.
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!
Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.
Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.
History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.
Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.
The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
In art as in love, instinct is enough.
If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.
I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life.
It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.
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.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.
Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.
