Anatole France

"True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings."

"There is nothing more futile than theorizing about morality."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that the very existence is an act of rebellion."

"All great questions must be judged in faith, and faith itself is the great question of all."

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds."

"To understand is to forgive, even oneself."

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

"Existence is not only meager, paltry, and happy, but also atrocious, horrible, and deplorable."

"I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of false hope."

"We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of further blindness and the irksomeness of action."

"It is forbidden to forbid."

"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."

"A person is never happy except through the satisfaction of some desire."

"The true miracle is not to walk on water. The true miracle is to walk on earth."

"If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads."

"Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man thinks of when he finds he has only a few days to live is something he ought to have done."

"To die for an idea is to place a pretty high price upon conjecture."

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor alike from stealing bread or sleeping under bridges."

"Charity is the height of nobleness, and none are truly great except the charitable."

"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read."

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek."

"Ignorance is the necessary condition of life itself. If we knew everything, we could not live."

"A critical mind is the guard against all forms of tyranny."

"The maladies we have deserved are often those that come to us."

"It is well that the world should see that we are not afraid."

"To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness."

"An education which does not cultivate the aesthetic sense is radically defective."

"It is forbidden to forbid imagination."

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."