Quotes from Anatole France

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

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

Change is the essence of life.

For the majority of people , though they do not know what to do with this life , long for another that shall have no end .

Irony and pity are two good counselors: one, in smiling, makes life pleasurable; the other, who cries, makes it sacred.

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

People who don't count won't count.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.

It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.

Silence is the wit of fools.

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance. [The ability to focus on positives and distract your mind from negatives for at least a time is a necessary skill for being happy.]

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

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

A tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid.

Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.

To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.

It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks.

The duty of literature is to note what counts, and to light up what is suited to the light. If it ceases to choose and to love, it becomes like a woman who gives herself without preference.

Dog! When we first met on the highway of life, we came from the two poles of creation.... What can be the meaning of the obscure love for me that has sprung up in your heart?

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

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.