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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.

-Anatole France

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A People Living Under

Anatole France

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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.

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Time Deals Gently Only With Those Who Take It Gently.

We Have Drugs To Make Women Speak, But None To Keep Them Silent.

In Order That Knowledge Be Properly Digested It Must Have Been Swallowed With A Good Appetite.

Awaken People's Curiosity. It Is Enough To Open Minds, Do Not Overload Them. Put There Just A Spark.

Nature, In Her Indifference, Makes No Distinction Between Good And Evil.

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.]

Yet, Every Now And Then, There Would Pass A Young Girl, Slender, Fair And Desirable, Arousing In Young Men A Not Ignoble Desire To Possess Her, And Stirring In Old Men Regrets For Ecstasy Not Seized And Now Forever Past.

God, Conquered, Will Become Satan; Satan, Conquering, Will Become God. May The Fates Spare Me This Terrible Lot; I Love The Hell Which Formed My Genius. I Love The Earth Where I Have Done Some Good, If It Be Possible To Do Any Good In This Fearful World Where Beings Live But By Rapine.

A Simple Style Is Like White Light. Although Complex, It Does Not Appear To Be So.

A Good Critic Is The Man Who Describes His Adventures Among Masterpieces.

I Cling To My Imperfection, As The Very Essence Of My Being.

Being Imperfect

You Learn To Speak By Speaking, To Study By Studying, To Run By Running, To Work By Working; In Just The Same Way, You Learn To Love By Loving.

It Is Human Nature To Think Wisely And To Act In An Absurd Fashion.

Good Angels Are Fallible ... They Sin Every Day And Fall From Heaven Like Flies.

So Long As Society Is Founded On Injustice, The Function Of The Laws Will Be To Defend Injustice. And The More Unjust They Are The More Respectable They Will Seem.

The Mania Of Thinking Renders One Unfit For Every Activity.

Our Passions Are Ourselves.

I Thank Fate For Having Made Me Born Poor. Poverty Taught Me The True Value Of The Gifts Useful To Life.

He Flattered Himself On Being A Man Without Any Prejudices; And This Pretension Itself Is A Very Great Prejudice.

Existence Would Be Intolerable If We Were Never To Dream.

The Future Is Hidden Even From Those Who Are Forging It.

That Man Is Prudent Who Neither Hopes Nor Fears Anything From The Uncertain Events Of The Future.

It Is Only The Poor Who Are Forbidden To Beg.

What We Call Strategy Is Mainly Just Crossing Rivers On Bridges And Passing Mountains Though Cols.

It Is By Believing In Roses That You Make Them Bloom.

The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Military Autocracy And There Is No Public Opinion In It.

The Greatest Virtue Of Man Is Perhaps Curiosity.

The Duty Of Literature Is To Note What Counts, And To Light Up What Is Suited To The Light. If It Ceases To Choose And To Love, It Becomes Like A Woman Who Gives Herself Without Preference.

We Have Never Heard The Devil's Side Of The Story, God Wrote All The Book.

Dog! When We First Met On The Highway Of Life, We Came From The Two Poles Of Creation.... What Can Be The Meaning Of The Obscure Love For Me That Has Sprung Up In Your Heart?

It Is By Acts And Not By Ideas That People Live.

What Frightens Us Most In A Madman Is His Sane Conversation.

People Who Don't Count Won't Count.

Until One Has Loved An Animal A Part Of One's Soul Remains Unawakened.

It Is Good To Collect Things, But It Is Better To Go On Walks.

You Think You Are Dying For Your Country; You Die For The Industrialists.

It Is Almost Impossible 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 Distinction Between Good And Evil.

Irony Is The Gaiety Of Reflection And The Joy Of Wisdom.

Justice Is The Sanction Of Established Injustice.

In Truth Man Is Made Rather To Eat Ices Than To Pore Over Old Texts.

The Heart Errs Like The Head; Its Errors Are Not Any The Less Fatal, And We Have More Trouble Getting Free Of Them Because Of Their Sweetness.

One Thing Above All Gives Charm To Men's Thoughts, And This Is Unrest. A Mind That Is Not Uneasy Irritates And Bores Me.

Caress Your Phrase Tenderly; It Will End By Smiling At You.

Human Affairs Inspire In Noble Hearts Only Two Feelings-admiration Or Pity.

There Are Very Honest People Who Do Not Think That They Have Had A Bargain Unless They Have Cheated A Merchant.

It Is Only The Poor Who Pay Cash, And That Not From Virtue, But Because They Are Refused Credit.

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.

Never Lend Books, For No One Ever Returns Them

There Is A Certain Impertinence In Allowing Oneself To Be Burned For An Opinion.

History Books That Contain No Lies Are Extremely Dull.

If It Were Absolutely Necessary To Choose, I Would Rather Be Guilty Of An Immoral Act Than Of A Cruel One.

The Good Critic Is He Who Relates The Adventures Of His Soul Among Masterpieces.

If The Path Be Beautiful, Let Us Not Ask Where It Leads.

Of All The Sexual Aberrations, Chastity Is The Strangest.

Play Is Hand-to-hand Encounter With Fate.

The Arab Who Built Himself A Hut With Marbles From The Temple Of Palmyra Is More Philosophical Than All The Curators Of The Museums Of London, Paris, And Munich.

It Is Not Easy To Be A Pretty Woman Without Causing Mischief.

Chance Is Perhaps The Pseudonym Of God When He Did Not Want To Sign.

What Men Call Civilization Is The Condition Of Present Customs; What They Call Barbarism, The Condition Of Past Ones.

People Who Have No Weaknesses Are Terrible; There Is No Way Of Taking Advantage Of Them.

Ignorance And Error Are Necessary To Life, Like Bread And Water.

We Live Between Two Dense Clouds; The Forgetting Of What Was And The Uncertainty Of What Will Be.

A Person Is Never Happy Except At The Price Of Some Ignorance.

That Child Whose Mother Has Never Smiled Upon Him Is Worthy Neither Of The Table Of The Gods Nor The Couch Of The Goddesses.

Jealousy Is A Virtue Of Democracies Which Preserves Them From Tyrants.

The Average Man Does Not Know What To Do With This Life, Yet Wants Another One Which Will Last Forever.

Word-carpentry Is Like Any Other Kind Of Carpentry: You Must Join Your Sentences Smoothly.

When A History Book Contains No Lies It Is Always Tedious.

You Become A Good Writer Just As You Become A Good Joiner: By Planing Down Your Sentences.

Dictionary: The Universe In Alphabetical Order.

Alphabetical Order

Innocence Most Often Is A Good Fortune And Not A Virtue.

I Ought Not To Fear To Survive My Own People So Long As There Are Men In The World; For There Are Always Some Whom One Can Love.

The Law In Its Majesty Prohibits Rich And Poor Alike From Sleeping Under Bridges.

An Old Philosopher Said To Monsieur Coignard, A Reverend Father: 'you Are A Pig!' To Which Abad Coignard Answered: 'you Flatter Me, Sir. But Unfortunately, I'm Only A Man.'

It Is By Acts, And Not By Ideas, That People Ensure The Bar Down The Street Cannot Have A Patio.

Men Are Not Created To Know, Men Are Not Created To Understand ... And Our Illusions Increase With Our Knowledge.

Nothing Spoils A Confession Like Repentance.

Stupidity Is Far More Dangerous Than Evil, For Evil Takes A Break From Time To Time, Stupidity Does Not.

The Whole Art Of Teaching Is Only The Art Of Awakening The Natural Curiosity Of Young Minds For The Purpose Of Satisfying It Afterwards.

Universal Peace Will Be Realized, Not Because Man Will Become Better, But Because A New Order Of Things, A New Science, New Economic Necessities, Will Impose Peace.

It Is Not Customary To Love What One Has.

A Tale Without Love Is Like Beef Without Mustard: Insipid.

When A Thing Has Been Said And Well, Have No Scruple. Take It And Copy It.

Without The Utopians Of Other Times, Men Would Still Live In Caves, Miserable And Naked. It Was Utopians Who Traced The Lines Of The First City.....out Of Generous Dreams Come Beneficial Realities. Utopia Is The Principle Of All Progress, And The Essay Into A Better Future.

The Power Of Love Itself Weakens And Gradually Becomes Lost With Age, Like All The Other Energies Of Man.

It Is Better To Understand Little Than To Misunderstand A Lot.

I Prefer The Folly Of Enthusiasm To The Indifference Of Wisdom.

True Education Is The Ability To Discern The Difference Between What You Do Know And What You Don't.

Nine Tenths Of Education Is Encouragement.

The Man Of Science Multiples The Points Of Contact Between Man And Nature.

It's Not By Amusing Oneself That One Learns.

Of All The Ways Of Defining Man, The Worst Is The One Which Makes Him Out To Be A Rational Animal.

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.

Without Lies Humanity Would Perish Of Despair And Boredom.

Man Is A Rational Animal. He Can Think Up A Reason For Anything He Wants To Believe.

It Is The Certainty That They Possess The Truth That Makes Men Cruel.

Ugly Women May Be Naturally Quite As Capricious As Pretty Ones; But As They Are Never Petted And Spoiled, And As No Allowances Are Made For Them, They Soon Find Themselves Obliged Either To Suppress Their Whims Or To Hide Them.

For The Majority Of People , Though They Do Not Know What To Do With This Life , Long For Another That Shall Have No End .

Sometimes One Day In A Difference Place Gives You More Than Ten Years Of A Life At Home.

The Faculty Of Doubting Is Rare Among Men. A Few Choice Spirits Carry The Germs Of It In Them, But These Do Not Develop Without Training.

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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.

Those Who Have Given Themselves The Most Concern About The Happiness Of Peoples Have Made Their Neighbors Very Miserable.

The Best Sentence? The Shortest.

Chance Is The Pseudonym God Uses When He'd Rather Not Sign His Own Name.

Only Men Who Are Not Interested In Women Are Interested In Women's Clothes. Men Who Like Women Never Notice What They Wear.

The Law ... Allows Rich As Well As Poor To Sleep Under Bridges.

All The Good Writers Of Confessions, From Augustine Onwards, Are Men Who Are Still A Little In Love With Their Sins.

The More You Say, The Less They Remember.

In Its Majestic Equality, The Law Forbids Rich And Poor Alike To Sleep Under Bridges, Beg In The Streets And Steal Loaves Of Bread.

Silence Is The Wit Of Fools.

Do Not Try To Satisfy Your Vanity By Teaching A Great Many Things. Awaken People's Curiosity. It Is Enough To Open Minds; Do Not Overload Them. Put There Just A Spark. If There Is Some Good Inflammable Stuff, It Will Catch Fire.

A Woman Without Breasts Is Like A Bed Without Pillows.

Religion Has Done Love A Great Service By Making It A Sin.

It Is Remarkable How Great An Influence Our Clothes Have On Our Moral State.

It Is Well For The Heart To Be Naive And For The Mind Not To Be.

Theologians And Philosophers, Who Make God The Creator Of Nature And The Architect Of The Universe, Reveal Him To Us As An Illogical And Unbalanced Being. They Declare He Is Benevolent Because They Are Afraid Of Him, But They Are Forced To Admit The Truth That His Ways Are Vicious And Beyond Understanding. They Attribute A Malignity To Him Seldom To Be Found In Any Human Being. And That Is How They Get Human Beings To Worship Him. For Our Miserable Species Would Never Lavish Worship On A Just And Benevolent God From Whom They Had Nothing To Fear.

Intelligent Women Always Marry Fools

Intelligent Women

To Accomplish Great Things, We Must Not Only Act, But Also Dream; Not Only Plan, But Also Believe.

We Find It Hard To Picture To Ourselves The State Of Mind Of A Man Of Older Days Who Firmly Believed That The Earth Was The Centre Of The Universe, And That All The Heavenly Bodies Revolved Around It. He Could Feel Beneath His Feet The Writhings Of The Damned Amid The Flames; Very Likely He Had Seen With His Own Eyes And Smelt With His Own Nostrils The Sulphurous Fumes Of Hell Escaping From Some Fissure In The Rocks. Looking Upwards, He Beheld ... The Incorruptible Firmament, Wherein The Stars Hung Like So Many Lamps.

The Wonder Is, Not That The Field Of Stars Is So Vast, But That Man Has Measured It.

Irony And Pity Are Two Good Counselors: One, In Smiling, Makes Life Pleasurable; The Other, Who Cries, Makes It Sacred.

There Are No Bad Books Any More Than There Are Ugly Women.

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!

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 Know And What You Don't.

An Education Which Does Not Cultivate The Will Is An Education That Depraves The Mind.

We Reproach People For Talking About Themselves But It Is The Subject They Treat Best.

Lack Of Understanding Is A Great Power. Sometimes It Enables Men To Conquer The World.

Conquer The World

There Is Only One Science, Love, One Riches, Love, Only One Policy, Love. To Make Love Is All The Law And The Prophets.

What We Call Happiness Is What We Do Not Know.

Lovers Who Love Truly Do Not Write Down Their Happiness.

The Truth Is That Life Is Delicious, Horrible, Charming, Frightful, Sweet, Bitter, And That Is Everything.

In Every Well-governed State Wealth Is A Sacred Thing; In Democracies It Is The Only Sacred Thing.

Unhappiness Does Make People Look Stupid.

It Is In The Ability To Deceive Oneself That The Greatest Talent Is Shown.

The Future Is A Convenient Place For Dreams.

War Will Disappear Only When Men Shall Take No Part Whatever In Violence And Shall Be Ready To Suffer Every Persecution That Their Abstention Will Bring Them. It Is The Only Way To Abolish War.

For Every Monarchy Overthrown The Sky Becomes Less Brilliant, Because It Loses A Star. A Republic Is Ugliness Set Free.

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.

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.

God Forbids Suicide, And Is Unwilling That His Creatures Should Destroy Themselves.

Until You Have Loved An Animal, Part Of Your Soul Will Have Remained Dormant.

The Impotence Of God Is Infinite.

America, Where Thanks To Congress, There Are Forty Million Laws To Enforce The Ten Commandments.

The Books That Everybody Admires Are Those That Nobody Reads.

To Imagine Is Everything, To Know Is Nothing At All.

Custom Alone Regulates Morals.

Never Lend Books, For No One Ever Returns Them; The Only Books I Have In My Library Are Books That Other Folks Have Left Me.

A Dictionary Is Merely The Universe Arranged In Alphabetical Order.

Alphabetical Order

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.

The Dog Is A Religious Animal. In His Savage State He Worships The Moon And The Lights That Float Upon The Waters. These Are His Gods To Whom He Appeals At Night With Long-drawn Howls.

Armenia Is Dying, But It Will Survive. The Little Blood That It Still Has Left Is Precious Blood That Will Give Birth To A Heroic Generation. A Nation That Does Not Want To Die, Does Not Die.

The Finest Words In The World Are Only Vain Sounds If You Can't Understand Them. The Best Sentence? The Shortest.

Justice Is The Means By Which Established Injustices Are Sanctioned

I Do Not Know Any Reading More Easy, More Fascinating, More Delightful Than A Catalogue.

Change Is The Essence Of Life.

Essence Of Life

We Thank God For Having Created This World, And Praise Him For Having Made Another, Quite Different One, Where The Wrongs Of This One Are Corrected.

Christianity Has Done A Great Deal For Love By Making A Sin Of It.

If Fifty Million People Say A Foolish Thing, It Is Still A Foolish Thing.

A Writer Is Rarely So Well Inspired As When He Talks About Himself.

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.

To Die For An Idea Is To Set A Rather High Price Upon Conjecture.

Man Is So Made That He Can Only Find Relaxation From One Kind Of Labor By Taking Up Another.

We Chase Dreams And Embrace Shadows.

The First Virtue Of All Really Great Men Is That They Are Sincere. They Eradicate Hypocrisy From Their Hearts.

In Art As In Love, Instinct Is Enough.

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.

People Changing

Distrust Even Mathematics; Albeit So Sublime And Highly Perfected, We Have Here A Machine Of Such Delicacy It Can Only Work In Vacuo, And One Grain Of Sand In The Wheels Is Enough To Put Everything Out Of Gear. One Shudders To Think To What Disaster Such A Grain Of Sand May Bring A Mathematical Brain. Remember Pascal.

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