“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”
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Famous Anatole France Quotes
“It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion.”
“I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.”
“Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.”
“That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.”
Source: Golden Tales of Anatole France
“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.”
“What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.”
“It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.”
“The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.”
“A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.”
Source: The Works of Anatole France in English: The opinions of Jérôme Coignard
“Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.”
“Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.”
“Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.”
“An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Anatole France (Illustrated)
“Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.”
“The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.”
“We reproach people for talking about themselves but it is the subject they treat best.”
“When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.”
“America, where thanks to Congress, there are forty million laws to enforce the Ten Commandments.”
“Nothing spoils a confession like repentance.”
Source: On life & letters
Source: The Red Lily
“Lack of understanding is a great power. Sometimes it enables men to conquer the world.”
“The Kingdom of Heaven is a military autocracy and there is no public opinion in it.”
Source: The Revolt of the Angels
Source: The Revolt of the Angels
“Word-carpentry is like any other kind of carpentry: you must join your sentences smoothly.”
“It is by acts, and not by ideas, that people ensure the bar down the street cannot have a patio.”
“Sometimes one day in a difference place gives you more than ten years of a life at home.”
“I do not know any reading more easy, more fascinating, more delightful than a catalogue.”
Source: The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard