Anatole France
Anatole France
Anatole Francewas a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie française, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth16 April 1844
CountryFrance
Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.
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.
Lack of understanding is a great power. Sometimes it enables men to conquer the world.
The future is a convenient place for dreams.
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance. [The ability to focus on positives and distract your mind from negatives for at least a time is a necessary skill for being happy.]
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.
The absurdity of a religious practice may be clearly demonstrated without lessening the numbers of people who indulge in it
Make love now, by night and by day, in winter and in summer... You are in the world for that and the rest of life is nothing but vanity, illusion, waste. There is only one science, love, only one riches, love, only one policy, love. To make love is all the law, and the prophets.
To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
We do not know what to do with this short life, yet we want another which will be eternal.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.
The average man does not know what to do with his life, yet wants another one which will last forever
It is well for the heart to be naive and for the mind not to be