Anatole France

“Les vierges entonnaient le cantique de Zacharie:-- Béni soit le Seigneur, le dieu d'Israël.Brusquement la voix s'arrêta dans leur gorge. Elles avaient vu la face du moine et elles fuyaient d'épouvante en criant:-- Un vampire! un vampire!Il était devenu si hideux qu'en passant la main sur son visage, il sentit sa laideur.”

“—Je porte dans mon coeur des villes innombrables et des déserts illimités. Et le mal, le mal et la mort, étendus sur cette immensité, la couvrent comme la nuit couvre la terre. Je suis à moi seul un univers de pensées mauvaises.Il parlait ainsi parce que le désir de la femme était en lui.”

“Alas!' replied Maître Mouche, 'she must be trained to take her part in the struggle of life. One does not come into this world simply to amuse oneself, and to do just what one pleases.''One comes into this world,' I responded, rather warmly, 'to enjoy what is beautiful and what is good, and to do as one pleases, when the things one wants to do are noble, intelligent, and generous. An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind. It is a teacher's duty to teach the pupil how to will.”

“I have always preferred the folly of the passions to the wisdom of indifference. But just because my own passions are not of that sort which burst out with violence to devastate and kill, the common mind is not aware of their existence. Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by them at times, and it has more than once been my fate to lose my sleep for the sake of a few pages written by some forgotten monk or printed by some humble apprentice of Peter Schöffer. And if these fierce enthusiasms are slowly being quenched in me, it is only because I am being slowly quenched myself. Our passions are ourselves. My old books are Me. I am just as old and thumb-worn as they are.”

“You see, Dimitri and I, we are both suffering from ennui! We have still the match-boxes. But at last one gets tired even of match-boxes. Besides, our collection will soon be complete. And then what are we going to do?"'Oh, Madame!' I exclaimed, touched by the moral unhappiness of this pretty person, 'if you only had a son, then you would know what to do. You would then learn the purpose of your life, and your thoughts would become at once more serious and yet more cheerful.''But I have a son,' she replied. 'He is a big boy; he is eleven years old, and he suffers from ennui like the rest of us. Yes, my George has ennui, too; he is tired of everything. It is very wretched.”

“I awaited Signor Polizzi's reply with ill-contained impatience. I could not even remain quiet; I would make sudden nervous gestures - open books and violent close them again. One day I happened to upset a book with my elbow - a volume of Moréri. Hamilcar, who was washing himself, suddenly stopped, and looked angrily at me, with his paw over his ear. Was this the tumultuous existence he must expect under my roof? Had there not been a tacit understanding between us that we should live a peaceful life? I had broken the covenant.”

“This book bore the label R>3214 VIII/2. And this painful truth was suddenly borne in upon the mind of Monsieur Sariette: to wit, that the most scientific system of numbering will not help to find a book if the book is no longer in its place.”

“We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we yearn for another that will be eternal.”

“What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance?”

“Dictionary: The universe in alphabetical order.”

“If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.”

“Epicure a dit: ou Dieu veut empêcher le mal et ne le peut, ou il le peut et ne le veut, ou il ne le peut ni ne le veut, ou il le veut et le peut. S'il le veut et ne le peut, il est impuissant; s'il le peut et ne le veut, il est pervers; s'il ne le peut ni ne le veut, il est impuissant et pervers; s'il le veut et le peut, que ne le fait-il, mon père ?”

“...the adventure of the soul among the masterpieces.”

“Slučajnost je Božji potpis kojim se On služi kada želi da ostane anoniman”

“A religião prestou ao amor um grande serviço, fazendo dele um pecado.”

“We chase dreams and embrace shadows.”

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

“For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.”

“Gelehrte sind Menschen, die sich von normalen Sterblichen durch die anerworbene Fähigkeit unterscheiden, sich an weitschweifigen und komplizierten Irrtümern zu ergötzen.”

“Suffering — how divine it is, how misunderstood! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.”

“I never go into the country for a change of air and a holiday. I always go instead into the eighteenth century.”

“Without lies, humanity would perish of despair and boredom”

“Great courage was required to engage in such an adventure. But George was in love and Freeheart was faithful. And as the most delightful of poets says“What cannot Friendship guided by sweet Love?”

“Μη δανείζετε ποτέ βιβλία σας σε φίλους. Κανένας δεν τα επιστρέφει. Τα μοναδικά βιβλία που έχουν μείνει στη βιβλιοθήκη μου είναι όσα μου εδάνεισαν κατά καιρούς οι φίλοι μου.”

“The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it.”

“Determination. To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream. Not only plan, but also believe.”

“Within every one of us there lives both a Don Quixote and aSancho Panza to whom we hearken by turns; and though Sanchomost persuades us, it is Don Quixote that we find ourselves obligedto admire...”

“I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.”

“We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book.”

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

“Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark.”

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

“Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.”

“Je tiens à mon imperfection comme à ma raison d'être.”

“A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reform. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.”

“Il est dans la nature humaine de penser sagement et d’agir d’une façon absurde.”

“Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.”

“J'ai toujours préféré la folie des passions à la sagesse de l'indifférence.”

“La paix universelle se réalisera un jour non parce que les hommes deviendront meilleurs mais parce qu'un nouvel ordre, une science nouvelle, de nouvelles nécessités économiques leur imposeront l'état pacifique.”

“C'est dans l'absolue ignorance de notre raison d'être qu'est la racine de notre tristesse et de nos dégoûts.”

“When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.”

“In art as in love, instinct is enough. ”

“It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.”

“An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.”

“The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.”

“It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg.”

“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”

“All the good writers of confessions, from Augustine onwards, are men who are still a little in love with their sins.”

“The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.”

“Nine tenths of education is encouragement.”