Anatole France
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.Collection: Work
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.Collection: War
Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened.Collection: Pet
History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.Collection: History
The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.Collection: Truth
To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.Collection: Imagination
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.Collection: Equality
Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.Collection: Women
In art as in love, instinct is enough.Collection: Art
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.Collection: Inspirational
If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.Collection: Beauty
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.Collection: Equality
Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.Collection: Happiness
Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Education
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.Collection: Art
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.Collection: Great
I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Chance
It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Change
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.Collection: Courage
Nine tenths of education is encouragement.Collection: Education
That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.Collection: Fear
An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.Collection: Education
Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.Collection: Chance
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!Collection: Chance
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.
It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.
The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.
Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.
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.
Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.
Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.
The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.
What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
When a thing has been said and 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 does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.
The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.
One thing above all gives charm to men's thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me.
Silence is the wit of fools.
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.
It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.
Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.