Anatole France Life Quotations

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.

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 not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

Irony and pity are two good counselors: one, in smiling, makes life pleasurable; the other, who cries, makes it sacred.

Change is the essence of life.

The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.

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

To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.

A tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

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