Quotes By Jean Rostand

To say of men that they are bad is to say they are worse than we think we are, or worse than the ideal man whose image we have built up on the basis of a certain few.

The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.

I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under their own glance.

Far too often the choices reality proposes are such as to take away one's taste for choosing.

It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.

The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.

God, that dumping ground of our dreams.

Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.

We spend our time envying people whom we wouldn't wish to be.

One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god.

One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.

Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.

Theories pass. The frog remains.

The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.

The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to.

We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.

I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of books.

I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.

Somebody told me I should put a pebble in my mouth to cure my stuttering. Well, I tried it, and during a scene I swallowed the pebble. That was the end of that.

A body of work such as Pasteur's is inconceivable in our time: no man would be given a chance to create a whole science. Nowadays a path is scarcely opened up when the crowd begins to pour in.

Falsity cannot keep an idea from being beautiful; there are certain errors of such ingenuity that one could regret their not ranking among the achievements of the human mind.

Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood - we fail to see the whole array when it is facing in the same direction as we.

A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.

There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.

Hatred, for the man who is not engaged in it, is a little like the odor of garlic for one who hasn't eaten any.

Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.

It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls.

A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us worthy of using it.

Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.