The Gods Will Have Blood Quotes

“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.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“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.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“Epicure a dit: ou Dieu veut empêcher le mal et ne le peut, ou il le peut et ne le veut, ou il ne le peut ni ne le veut, ou il le veut et le peut. S'il le veut et ne le peut, il est impuissant; s'il le peut et ne le veut, il est pervers; s'il ne le peut ni ne le veut, il est impuissant et pervers; s'il le veut et le peut, que ne le fait-il, mon père ?”
― Anatole France, Les dieux ont soif

“After the usual politeness, the Citizen Brotteaux resumed the thread of his discourse:
'Those who make a trade out of foretelling the future rarely grow rich. Their attempts to deceive are too easily found out and arouse detestation. And yet it would be necessary to detest them much, much more if they foretold the future correctly. 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.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“For you can always tell the gods by their appetite.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“I love reason, but my love does not make me a fanatic,' Brotteaux answered. 'Reason is our guide, a light to show us our way; but if you make a divinity of it, it will blind you and lead you into crime”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“In every household the Revolution had emptied the cooking-pot.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“Sir," the monk addressed him, "I am thankful for what you are doing for me; but alas! it is of small moment to you whether I am grateful or no. May God account your act meritorious! That is of infinite concern for you. But God pays no heed to what is not done for his glory and is merely the outcome of purely natural virtue. Wherefore I beseech you, sir, to do for Him what you were led to do for me."

"Father," answered Brotteaux, "never trouble yourself on this head and do not think of gratitude. What I am doing now, the merit of which you exaggerate,—is not done for any love of you; for indeed, albeit you are a lovable man, Father, I know you too little to love you. Nor yet do I act so for love of humanity; for I am not so simple as to think with 'Don Juan' that humanity has rights; indeed this prejudice, in a mind so emancipated as his, grieves me. I do it out of that selfishness which inspires mankind to perform all their deeds of generosity and self-sacrifice, by making them recognize themselves in all who are unfortunate, by disposing them to commiserate their own calamities in the calamities of others and by inciting them to offer help to a mortal resembling themselves in nature and destiny, so that they think they are succouring themselves in succouring him. I do it also for lack of anything better to do; for life is so desperately insipid we must find distraction at any cost, and benevolence is an amusement, of a mawkish sort, one indulges in for want of any more savoury; I do it out of pride and to get an advantage over you; I do it, in a word, as part of a system and to show you what an atheist is capable of.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Are Athirst

“We should adopt his principles and govern men as they are and not as what we'd like them to be.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“For our miserable species would never lavish worship on a just and benevolent God from whom they had nothing to fear; they would only feel an empty and thankless gratitude for their benefits. Without purgatory and hell, your God would indeed be a useless creature.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“But don't you ever tell me the Revolution will bring equality, because men'll never be equal. It's just not possible. They can turn the country upside down and inside out, there'll always be the big people and the little people, the fat ones and the thin ones.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“We must put our trust in Robespierre; he is incorruptible.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“las pobres gentes, adiestradas en la obediencia por sus antiguos tiranos y por sus recientes libertadores, se alejaron de allí cabizbajas, arrastrando los pies.”
― Anatole France, Los Dioses tienen Sed

“El panadero, su mujer y un mozo cumplían las órdenes de los dos comisarios civiles —cuya autoridad simbolizaba una cinta tricolor en el brazo izquierdo— que investigaban si el consumidor pertenecía a la Sección, y la cantidad de pan que podía corresponderle con arreglo a la familia que tuviera en su casa.”
― Anatole France, Los Dioses tienen Sed

“sin el Infierno y el Purgatorio nadie se preocuparía de Dios.”
― Anatole France, Los Dioses tienen Sed

“Debemos amar la virtud, pero es bueno saber que se trata de un sencillo recurso imaginado por los hombres para vivir unidos cómodamente”
― Anatole France, Los Dioses tienen Sed

“La razón guía y alumbra, pero si la divinizáis, acaso ciegue y sea instigadora de crímenes…”
― Anatole France, Los Dioses tienen Sed

“We ought to love virtue; but it is well to realize that we ought to only because it is a convenient expedient invented by men in order that they may live comfortably together. What we call morality is simply and solely a desperate enterprise, a forlorn hope on the part of our fellow men to reverse the order of the Universe, which is constant strife and murder, blind, ceaseless and implacable. All is self-destruction, and the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that the the Universe is mad.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“من خود شیفته ی خرد هستم، ولی نسبت به آن تعصبی ندارم. عقل راهنما ی ما و چراغ راه ما است، ولی اگر از عقل خدایی بسازید، کورتان می کند و شما را به جنایت وا می دارد.”
― Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood

“توده ها به راحتی خیال می کنند که تنها تبهکاران از خشم آنان می ترسند. خبر ندارند که شتاب سنجیده و نابخردانه شان در کار داوری، حتی بی گناهان را نیز دچار خطا می کند.”
― Anatole France , The Gods Will Have Blood