The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard Quotes

“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.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. ”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“I have always preferred the folly of the passions to the wisdom of indifference. But just because my own passions are not of that sort which burst out with violence to devastate and kill, the common mind is not aware of their existence. Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by them at times, and it has more than once been my fate to lose my sleep for the sake of a few pages written by some forgotten monk or printed by some humble apprentice of Peter Schöffer. And if these fierce enthusiasms are slowly being quenched in me, it is only because I am being slowly quenched myself. Our passions are ourselves. My old books are Me. I am just as old and thumb-worn as they are.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“Alas!' replied Maître Mouche, 'she must be trained to take her part in the struggle of life. One does not come into this world simply to amuse oneself, and to do just what one pleases.'

'One comes into this world,' I responded, rather warmly, 'to enjoy what is beautiful and what is good, and to do as one pleases, when the things one wants to do are noble, intelligent, and generous. An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind. It is a teacher's duty to teach the pupil how to will.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“You see, Dimitri and I, we are both suffering from ennui! We have still the match-boxes. But at last one gets tired even of match-boxes. Besides, our collection will soon be complete. And then what are we going to do?"

'Oh, Madame!' I exclaimed, touched by the moral unhappiness of this pretty person, 'if you only had a son, then you would know what to do. You would then learn the purpose of your life, and your thoughts would become at once more serious and yet more cheerful.'

'But I have a son,' she replied. 'He is a big boy; he is eleven years old, and he suffers from ennui like the rest of us. Yes, my George has ennui, too; he is tired of everything. It is very wretched.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“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 into another!”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“Within every one of us, there lives both a Don Quixote and a Sancho Panza to whom we hearken by turns; and though Sancho most persuades us, it is Don Quixote that we find ourselves obliged to admire.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything. Nothing exists except that which is imagined.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“I am crazy, I know, Thérèse. But who is not?”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“I awaited Signor Polizzi's reply with ill-contained impatience. I could not even remain quiet; I would make sudden nervous gestures - open books and violent close them again. One day I happened to upset a book with my elbow - a volume of Moréri. Hamilcar, who was washing himself, suddenly stopped, and looked angrily at me, with his paw over his ear. Was this the tumultuous existence he must expect under my roof? Had there not been a tacit understanding between us that we should live a peaceful life? I had broken the covenant.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“To be the least wise in order to become the most wise--this is precisely what those Buddhists are aiming at without knowing it.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“'Une paisible indifference
Est la plus sage de vertus.'

'The most wise of the virtues is a calm indifference”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“But the power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes lost with age, like all the other energies of man.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“In all the arts," he adds, "the artist can only reflect his own soul. His work, no matter how it may be dressed up, is of necessity contemporary with himself, being the reflection of his own mind. What do we admire in the *Divine Comedy* unless it be the great soul of Dante? And the marbles of Michael Angelo, what do they represent to us that is at all extraordinary unless it be Michael Angelo himself? The artist either communicates his own life to his creations or else merely whittles out puppets and dresses up dolls.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by my passions at times, and it has more than once been my fate to lose my sleep for the sake of a few pages written by some forgotten monk or printed by some humble apprentice of Peter Schoeffer.

And if these fierce enthusiasms are slowly being quenched in me, it is only because I am being slowly quenched myself. Our passions are ourselves. My old books are me. I am just as old and thumbworn as they are.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“The trouble of living a long time is not that one lasts too long, but that one sees all about him pass away- mother, wife, friends, children. Nature makes and unmakes all these divine treasures with gloomy indifference, and at last, we find that we have not loved, we have only been embracing shadows.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“The beautiful things I have seen are still so vivid in my mind that I feel the task of writing them would be a useless fatigue. Why spoil my pleasure-trip by collecting notes? Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“We remain forever children, and are always running after new toys.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“Let us love the books which please us and cease to trouble ourselves about classifications and schools of literature.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“What a lot of books!" she screamed. "And have you really read them all, Monsieur Bonnard?"
"Alas! I have," I replied, "and that is just the reason that I do not know anything; for there is not a single one of those books which does not contradict some other book; so that by the time one has read them all one does not know what to think about anything. That is just my condition, Madame.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“ژان پیشانی خود را میان دو دست خود گرفته و قیافه اش حکایت از کمی تاثر و اندوه باطنی می کند.
من به او‌ نگاه کرده به خود می گویم: هر تغییری که در وضع روزگار ما پیش می آید، خواه آن تغییر دلخواه ما باشد یا نباشد، به هر حال غبار ملالی از آن بر خاطر ما می‌نشیند. زیرا که هر
مرحله از زندگی که می گذاریم و می گذریم جزئی از خود ماست که می میرد و دیگر باز نمی گردد؛ ورود در هر زندگی نو، مستلزم .
مرگ زندگی کهن است.
تو گوئی دخترک به کنه اندیشه ی من پی برد و گفت:
"آقای بونارد من حقیقتا خوشبختم ولی دلم‌می خواهد گریه کنم”
― Anatole France, Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard

“He would not stoop even to pick up the old manuscript I am going to seek with so much trouble and fatigue. And in truth man is made rather to eat ices than to pore over old texts.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“that she was course.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

“One comes into this world, to enjoy what is beautiful and what is good, and to do as one pleases, when the things one wants to do are noble, intelligent and generous. An education which does not cultivate the will, is an education that depraves the mind. It is a teacher's duty to teach the pupil how to will.”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard