Quotes from Anatole France

Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.

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

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

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

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.

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

We chase dreams and embrace shadows.

The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it.

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.

Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He'd rather not sign His own name.

Universal peace will be realized, not because man will become better, but because a new order of things, a new science, new economic necessities, will impose peace.

The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it.

There is only one science, love, one riches, love, only one policy, love. To make love is all the law and the prophets.

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.

Sometimes one day in a difference place gives you more than ten years of a life at home.

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.

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

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.