Anatole France (1844–1924) was one of France’s most popular novelists and winner the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He was born François-Anatole Thibault but signed his works “Anatole France” as a tribute to his father’s bookstore in Paris. That bookstore, named Librairie de France, specialized in literature on the French Revolution. Many prominent French scholars frequented this bookstore and influenced Anatole’s philosophy.
Though Anatole mostly wrote historical and social novels, he’s best remembered for the fantasy novel L’Île des Pingouins (Penguin Island; 1908) It features an imaginary penguin civilization where a blind and somewhat deaf abbot mistakenly baptizes the penguins who then transform into human beings. Penguin Island is a satire on society and human nature in which Anatole lampooned morality, traditions, and the origin of law and religion.
Anatole France’s other prominent novels include Les dieux ont soif (The Gods Are Athirst, 1912) and La Révolte des anges (The Revolt of Angels, 1914.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Anatole France
It is almost 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 difference between right and wrong.
—Anatole France
Topics: Morals, Nature, Morality, Evil
Human affairs inspire in noble hearts only two feelings—admiration or pity.
—Anatole France
Topics: Admiration, Respect, Inspiration
It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.
—Anatole France
Topics: Deception, Talent
If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.
—Anatole France
Topics: One liners
When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
—Anatole France
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.
—Anatole France
Topics: Censorship
What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
—Anatole France
Topics: Sanity
The future is hidden even from those who make it.
—Anatole France
Topics: The Future, Tomorrow
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.
—Anatole France
Topics: Rain, Justice, Laws, Wealth
To die for an idea sets a high price on conjecture.
—Anatole France
Topics: Ideals
It is well for the heart to be naive and for the mind not to be.
—Anatole France
Topics: Innocence, Knowledge
One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past nor complaining against the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the very essence of life.
—Anatole France
You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences
—Anatole France
Topics: Writers
The Sciences are beneficent. They prevent men from thinking.
—Anatole France
Topics: Science
Of all the sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.
—Anatole France
Topics: Sex
Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women’s clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.
—Anatole France
Topics: Fashion
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
—Anatole France
Topics: Work, Relaxation, Labor, Kind
I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.
—Anatole France
Topics: Perfection
It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.
—Anatole France
Topics: Money
We have drugs to make women speak, but none to keep them silent.
—Anatole France
Topics: Drugs
Our passions are ourselves.
—Anatole France
Topics: Passion, Enthusiasm
Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
—Anatole France
Topics: Harmony
The future is a convenient place for dreams.
—Anatole France
Topics: Future, Dreams
The dog is a religious animal. In his savage state he worships the moon and the lights that float upon the waters. These are his gods to whom he appeals at night with long-drawn howls.
—Anatole France
Topics: Dogs
The duty of literature is to note what counts, and to light up what is suited to the light. If it ceases to choose and to love, it becomes like a woman who gives herself without preference.
—Anatole France
Topics: Literature
Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.
—Anatole France
Topics: Love, Lovers
The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
—Anatole France
Topics: Greed
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them. The only books I have in my library are those that other folks have lent me.
—Anatole France
Topics: Libraries
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.
—Anatole France
Topics: Equality
Night has come! Leaning from the window, we gaze at the vast sombre stretch of the city below us, pierced with multitudinous points of light. Jeanne presses her hand to her forehead as she leans upon the window-bar, and seems a little sad. And I say to myself as I watch her: All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves: we must die in one life before we can enter into another!
And as if answering my thought, the young girl murmurs to me.
My guardian, I am so happy; and still I feel as if I wanted to cry!
—Anatole France
Topics: Change
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