Anatole France: Frases en inglés (página 4)

Il est dans la nature humaine de penser sagement et d'agir d'une façon absurde.
Le livre de mon ami http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Livre_de_Pierre_-_Premi%C3%A8res_conqu%C3%AAtes#II._La_Dame_en_blanc (1885): Le livre de Pierre, part I, ch. II: La dame en blanc

J'ai toujours préféré la folie des passions à la sagesse de l'indifférence.
Pt. II, ch. 4
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)
Variante: I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the wisdom of indifference.

Quand une chose a été dite et bien dite, n'ayez aucun scrupule, prenez-la, copiez.
As quoted in Anatole France en pantoufles by Jean-Jacques Brousson (1924); published in English as Anatole France Himself: A Boswellian Record by His Secretary, Jean-Jacques Brousson (1925), trans. John Pollock [Read Books, 2007, ISBN 1-406-75172-3], p. 56

Variante: For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.
Fuente: The Revolt of the Angels (1914), Ch. XXI

L'homme est ainsi fait qu'il ne se délasse d'un travail que par un autre.
Pt. II, ch. 4
Fuente: The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.
Le Lys Rouge http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Lys_rouge/VII [The Red Lily] (1894), ch. 7
Variante: The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

Si 50 millions de personnes disent une bêtise, c'est quand même une bêtise.
As quoted in Listening and Speaking : A Guide to Effective Oral Communication https://books.google.com/books?redir_esc=y&hl=es&id=0CcWYwjwyRgC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=foolish (1954) by Ralph G. Nichols and Thomas R. Lewis, p. 74
Also misattributed to Bertrand Russell, by Laurence J. Peter, in The Peter Prescription : How To Make Things Go Right (1976), but he subsequently attributed to France in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977).
Derived variant: If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook (1949), entry for 1901
Variante: If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

C'est d'actes et non d'idées que vivent les peuples.
Series I: Sérénus http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/S%C3%A9r%C3%A9nus
As quoted in The Ironic Temper : Anatole France and His Time (1932)
The Literary Life (1888-1892)
Variante: It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Un conte sans amour est comme du boudin sans moutarde; c’est chose insipide.
La Révolte des Anges http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_R%C3%A9volte_des_anges_-_8 [The Revolt of the Angels], (1914), ch. VIII

Book VIII : Future Times
Penguin Island (1908)

Apparently an invention by Maurice Sachs; see discussion in Quotes about Proust.
Misattributed