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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.

-Anatole France

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Truth Possesses Within Herself

Anatole France

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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

It Is Not Customary To Love What One Has.

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing Spoils A Confession Like Repentance.

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

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

The Greatest Virtue Of Man Is Perhaps Curiosity.

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.

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.

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

Silence Is The Wit Of Fools.

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

The Books That Everybody Admires Are Those That Nobody Reads.

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

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

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.

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?

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

Lovers Who Love Truly Do Not Write Down Their Happiness.

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.

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

Nine Tenths Of Education Is Encouragement.

Without Lies Humanity Would Perish Of Despair And Boredom.

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

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

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

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

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.

Existence Would Be Intolerable If We Were Never To Dream.

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

Our Passions Are Ourselves.

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

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.

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.]

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.

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

It Is Only The Poor Who Are Forbidden To Beg.

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

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

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

The More You Say, The Less They Remember.

A Dictionary Is Merely The Universe Arranged In Alphabetical Order.

Alphabetical Order

Justice Is The Sanction Of Established Injustice.

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

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.

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.

A Woman Without Breasts Is Like A Bed Without Pillows.

Play Is Hand-to-hand Encounter With Fate.

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

Change Is The Essence Of Life.

Essence Of Life

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.'

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

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

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.

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

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

In Art As In Love, Instinct Is Enough.

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.

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.

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

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

The Mania Of Thinking Renders One Unfit For Every Activity.

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

Custom Alone Regulates Morals.

Of All The Sexual Aberrations, Chastity Is The Strangest.

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

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

Being Imperfect

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Wandering Re-establishes The Original Harmony Which Once Existed Between Man And The Universe.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Justice Is The Means By Which Established Injustices Are Sanctioned

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

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

The Best Sentence? The Shortest.

Unhappiness Does Make People Look Stupid.

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

Never Lend Books, For No One Ever Returns Them

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

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

History Books That Contain No Lies Are Extremely Dull.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The Impotence Of God Is Infinite.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Intelligent Women Always Marry Fools

Intelligent Women

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Conquer The World

The Future Is A Convenient Place For Dreams.

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.

We Chase Dreams And Embrace Shadows.

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

What We Call Happiness Is What We Do Not Know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dictionary: The Universe In Alphabetical Order.

Alphabetical Order

It's Not By Amusing Oneself That One Learns.

People Who Don't Count Won't Count.

Time Deals Gently Only With Those Who Take It Gently.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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