Quotes By Jean Rostand

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.

When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won't one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.

Think? Why think! We have computers to do that for us.

Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt.

One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.

It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.

To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.

A married couple are well suited when both partners usually feel the need for a quarrel at the same time.

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.

Already at the origin of the species man was equal to what he was destined to become.

I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.

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 ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

There are moments when very little truth would be enough to shape opinion. One might be hated at extremely low cost.

It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.

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

God, that dumping ground of our dreams.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.