Jean Rostand

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

— Jean Rostand

To be adult is to be alone.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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..

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

God, that dumping ground of our dreams.

— Jean Rostand

God, that checkroom of our dreams.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.

— Jean Rostand

To hate fatigues.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— 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.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.

— Jean Rostand

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.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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.

— Jean Rostand

We are not na?ve enough to ask for pure men; we ask merely for men whose impurity does not conflict with the obligations of their job.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, with the possible exception of the teacher who backs him or the student who honors him.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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.

— Jean Rostand

Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.

— Jean Rostand

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.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.

— Jean Rostand

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

— Jean Rostand

I still understand a few words in life, but I no longer think they make a sentence.

— Jean Rostand

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

— Jean Rostand

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

— Jean Rostand