Anatole France Quotes

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 whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.

S’il fallait absolument choisir, j’aimerais mieux faire une chose immorale qu’une chose cruelle.

Man is summed up in Art. All the rest is moonshine.

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

We chase dreams and embrace shadows.

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

Life is too short, and Proust is too long.

II n'y a que les pauvres gens qui payent comptant. Ce n'est pas par vertu; c'est parce qu'on ne leur fait pas crédit.

Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.

"You cry, "give us war!" You are visionaries. When will you become thinkers? The thinkers do not look for power and strength from any of the dreams that constitute military art: tactics, strategies, fortifications, artillery and all that rubbish. They do no believe in war, which is a fantasy; they believe in chemistry, which is a science. They know the way to put victory into an algebraic formula."

Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

Have we not seen many times indeed human beings who, poor and naked, prostrate themselves before all the phantoms of fear, and rather than follow the teaching of well-disposed demons, obey the commandments of cruel demiurges?

It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.