“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 (1881), Part II, Ch. 4

About Anatole France

1844 – 1924

French poet, journalist and novelist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1921).

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

“If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one.”

“Christianity has done a great deal for love by making it a sin.”

“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.”

“Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent.”

“I am not now that which I have been.”

“Still ending, and beginning still.”

“Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”

“Progress consists only in the greater clarification of answers to the basic questions of life.”