Anatole France Quotes

French writer (1844–1924)

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Anatole France (16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924), born Jacques Anatole François Thibault, was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. A member of the Académie française, he won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature in recognition of his literary achievements. He is widely believed to be the model for the narrator's literary idol "Bergotte" in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: Anatolis Fransas

Alternative Names: Jacques François-Anatole Thibault • François-Anatole Thibault • Anatole Thibault

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

De toutes les définitions de l'homme, la plus mauvaise me paraît celle qui en fait un animal raisonnable.

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.

Il est à peu près impossible de constituer systématiquement une morale naturelle. La nature n'a pas de principes. Elle ne nous fournit aucune raison de croire que la vie humaine est respectable. La nature, indifférente, ne fait nulle distinction du bien et du mal.

Un conte sans amour est comme du boudin sans moutarde; c’est chose insipide.

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.

Il ne savait rien, ne voulait rien savoir, en quoi il se conformait à son génie, dont il ne surchargeait point l’aimable petitesse, et son heureux instinct lui conseillait de comprendre peu plutôt que de comprendre mal.

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

Nous avons des remèdes pour faire parler les femmes; nous n'en avons pas pour les faire taire.

Innocence most often is a good fortune and not a virtue.

L'innocence, le plus souvent, est un bonheur et non pas une vertu.

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

Dans tout État policé, la richesse est chose sacrée; dans les démocraties elle est la seule chose sacrée.

Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women see more than how they dress.

Ce sont les hommes qui n'aiment pas les femmes qui s'intéressent à la toilette des femmes. Et les hommes qui aiment les femmes ne voient pas seulement comment elles sont habillées.