“Silence is the wit of fools.”

French poet, journalist, and novelist

Anatole France was a French poet, journalist, and novelist, and one of the best-known literary figures of his time. He lived from 1844 to 1924 and is remembered for a career that made him, in his day, an ideal of the French man of letters. His books were widely read, and several became best-sellers. He was known for an ironic, skeptical outlook, and for prose marked by elegance and human sympathy. He was a member of the Académie Française, and in 1921 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his literary achievement.