Anatole France Quotes

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.

What we call happiness is what we do not know.

And the thing has been said and said well have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past or in complaining against the changes which cause us discomfort for change is the essence of life.

All changes even the most longed for have their melancholy for what we leave behind us is apart of ourselves we must die to one life before we can enter into another.

I do not know any reading more easy more fascinating more delightful than a catalogue.

Ignorance is the necessary condition, i do not say of happiness, but of life itself. If we knew everything, we could not endure existence a single hour. The sentiments that make it sweet to us, or at any rate tolerable, spring from a falsehood, and are fed on illusions.If, like God, a man possessed the truth, the sole and perfect truth, and once let it escape out of his hands, the world would be annihilated there and then, and the universe melt away instantly like a shadow.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.