The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.
Anatole France

Silence is the wit of fools.
Anatole France

We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.
Anatole France

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

It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.
Anatole France

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

It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.
Anatole France

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

Suffering! 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.
Anatole France

There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant.
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

The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
Anatole France

We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.
Anatole France

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

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

The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
Anatole France

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.
Anatole France

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.
Anatole France

Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.
Anatole France

Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.
Anatole France

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!
Anatole France

Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.
Anatole France

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.
Anatole France

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.
Anatole France

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

What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
Anatole France