Anatole France Quotes

86 Sourced Quotes

To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

Anatole France
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.

Anatole France
The Kingdom of Heaven is a military autocracy and there is no public opinion in it.

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

Anatole France
In truth man is made rather to eat ices than to pore over old texts.

Anatole France
That child whose mother has never smiled upon him is worthy neither of the table of the gods nor the couch of the goddesses.

Anatole France
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?

Anatole France
The power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes lost with age, like all the other energies of man.

Anatole France
Every vice you destroy has a corresponding virtue, which perishes along with it.

Anatole France
If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one.

Anatole France
Truth possesses within herself a penetrating force, unknown alike to error and falsehood. I say 'truth' and you understand my meaning. For the beautiful words truth and justice need not to be defined in order to be understood in their true sense.

Anatole France
We have medicines to make women speak; we have none to make them keep silence.

Anatole France
A pretext presented itself; some insult needed to be avenged, or some debt to be collected. Six battleships, fourteen cruisers, and eighteen transports sailed up the mouth of the river Hippopotamus. Six hundred canoes vainly opposed the landing of the troops. Admiral Vivier des Murenes' cannons produced an appalling effect upon the blacks, who replied to them with flights of arrows, but in spite of their fanatical courage they were entirely defeated. Popular enthusiasm was kindled by the newspapers which the financiers subsidised, and burst into a blaze. Some Socialists alone protested against this barbarous, doubtful, and dangerous enterprise. They were at once arrested.

Anatole France
It is by acts, and not by ideas that people live.

Anatole France
Michael was for the offensive. He, as a consummate soldier, said it was the supreme law. Attack, or be attacked, — there was no middle course.
"Moreover," he added, "the offensive attitude is particularly suitable to the ardour of the Thrones and Dominations."
Beyond that, it was impossible to obtain a word from the valiant chief, and this silence seemed the mark of a genius sure of himself.

Anatole France
With impassive gaze, Michael, prince of warriors, measured the extent of the disaster, and his keen intelligence penetrated its causes. The armies of the living God had taken the offensive, but by one of those fatalities in war which disconcert the plans of the greatest captains, the enemy had also taken the offensive, and the effect was evident.

Anatole France
To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.

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

Anatole France
It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.

Anatole France
Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.

Anatole France
All the historical books which contain no lies are extremely tedious.

Anatole France
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.

Anatole France
And to me it seems that you have fallen asleep upon a white rock, and in a parish of dreams, and have dreamt all this in a moment while it was night.

Anatole France
God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot; I love the Hell which formed my genius. I love the Earth where I have done some good, if it be possible to do any good in this fearful world where beings live but by rapine.

Anatole France
In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.

Anatole France
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.

Anatole France
Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

Anatole France
You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.

Anatole France
The following day, on the ethereal plain, Satan commanded the black standards to be distributed to the troops, and the winged soldiers covered them with kisses and bedewed them with tears.
And Satan had himself crowned God. Thronging round the glittering walls of Heavenly Jerusalem, apostles, pontiffs, virgins, martyrs, confessors, the whole company of the elect, who during the fierce battle had enjoyed delightful tranquillity, tasted infinite joy in the spectacle of the coronation.
The elect saw with ravishment the Most High precipitated into Hell, and Satan seated on the throne of the Lord. In conformity with the will of God which had cut them off from sorrow they sang in the ancient fashion the praises of their new Master.

Anatole France
He had no knowledge and had no desire to acquire any; wherein he conformed to his genius whose engaging fragility he forbore to overload; his instinct fortunately telling him that it was better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.

Anatole France