309 Quotes by Anatole France

I am a physician. I keep a drug-shop of lies. I give relief, consolation. Can one console and relieve without lying? ... Only women and doctors know how necessary and how helpful lies are to men.

Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.

Truth possesses within herself a penetrating force, unknown alike to error and falsehood. I say ‘truth’ and you understand my meaning. For the beautiful words truth and justice need not to be defined in order to be understood in their true sense.

For you can always tell the gods by their appetite.

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them.

People who don’t count won’t count.

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.

Of all earthly creatures, humans alone have the power to choose. One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past nor in complaining about the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the very essence of life.

If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.