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.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.

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.

The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.

Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened.

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

Nature has no principles. She makes no distinction between good and evil.

Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.

To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

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.

Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.

That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.

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.

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.

An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.