“The great human asset is man himself.”

— Anatole France

Ch, IV, p. 175
The White Stone (1905)
Context: The great human asset is man himself. In order to rate the terrestrial globe, it is necessary to begin by rating men. To exploit the soil, the mines, the waters, all the substances and all the forces of our planet, it needs man, the whole of man; humanity, the whole of humanity. The complete exploitation of the terrestrial globe demands the united labour of white, yellow, and black men. By reducing, diminishing, and weakening, or, to sum it up in one word, by colonising a portion of humanity, we are working against ourselves. It is to our advantage that yellow and black men should be powerful, free, and wealthy. Our prosperity and our wealth depend on theirs. The more is produced, the more will there be consumed. The greater the profit they derive from us, the greater the profit we shall derive from them. If they reap the benefit of our labours, so shall we fully reap theirs.
If we study the movements which govern the destinies of societies, we may perhaps discover signs that the era of violent deeds is coming to an end. War, which was formerly a standing institution among nations, is now intermittent, and the periods of peace have become of longer duration than those of war.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The great human asset is man himself." by Anatole France?

Anatole France 122

French writer 1844–1924

Related quotes

“Every emancipation is a restoration of the human world and of human relationships to a man himself.”

Karl Marx book On the Jewish Question

On the Jewish Question (1843)

“No really great man ever thought himself so.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

“The great man is the man who can get himself made and who will get himself made out of anything he finds at hand.”

Gerald Stanley Lee (1862–1944) Americna minister

Book II, Chapter XV.
Crowds (1913)

“Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: Tomorrow Is Now (1963), p. 71

“Every man has within himself the entire human condition”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 2
Essais (1595), Book III
Variant: Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

“Throughout man's career intelligence and charity have been man's distinctive and most valuable assets.”

Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) British novelist and philosopher

Philosophy and Living (1939)
Context: Throughout man's career intelligence and charity have been man's distinctive and most valuable assets. One of our early pre-human ancestors is said to have been much like the Spectral Tarsier, a little mammal about the size of a mouse, with long wiry fingers and huge forward-looking eyes adapted for binocular vision. Not by weapons but by correlation of subtle eyes and subtle hands through subtle brain, this creature triumphed. And man himself conquered the world by the same means, by attention, by discrimination, by skilled manipulation, by versatility; in fact by intelligence and imagination in adapting himself to an ever-changing environment.