Wit & Attitude Quote by Anatole France

A sly paradox does the heavy lifting here: confidence is framed not as proof of intelligence but as evidence of its absence. France sets a trap with that archaic “doth,” borrowing the cadence of moral aphorism to smuggle in a modern, skeptical punchline. The first clause is almost cartoonishly blunt - the fool “thinks” he’s wise - but the second clause twists the knife: the wise man isn’t simply modest; he’s lucid enough to recognize how easily the mind lies to itself.

France was writing in a fin-de-siecle culture intoxicated with progress stories, scientific certainty, and the self-assurance of institutions. As a novelist steeped in irony and political disillusionment (his Dreyfusard commitments matter here), he had reason to distrust anyone who sounded too sure. The line reads like a diagnosis of public life: dogmatists flourish because certainty performs well, while actual intelligence tends to hesitate, qualify, and revise. Wisdom becomes less a trophy than a posture of permanent self-interrogation.

The subtext is quietly corrosive. It’s not praising self-deprecation for its own sake; it’s warning that certainty is often a comfort object - a way to avoid the discomfort of complexity, fallibility, and moral ambiguity. France’s intent lands as social critique: the people most eager to declare “I understand” are often the least equipped to, and the people worth listening to are the ones who can admit, without theatrics, how much they don’t know.