Jean Rostand Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

It is horrible to see everything that one detested in the past coming back wearing the colors of the future. — Jean Rostand

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

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

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued. — Jean Rostand

Whether man is disposed to yield to nature or to oppose her, he cannot do without a correct understanding of her language — Jean Rostand

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

To be able to observe with a stranger's eye helps one to see with an artist's eye. What alienates us inspires. — Jean Rostand

In our ideals we unwittingly reveal our vices. — 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

We bestow on others praise in which we do not believe, on condition that in return they bestow upon us praise in which we do. — 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

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men. — Jean Rostand

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

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

Being right is less important to us than the freedom to be wrong. — Jean Rostand

Kill a man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god. — Jean Rostand

God, that dumping ground of our dreams. — Jean Rostand

Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts. — Jean Rostand

Literature: proclaiming in front of everyone what one is careful to conceal from one's immediate circle — Jean Rostand

We give others praise which we ourselves don't believe, as long as they respond with praise we can believe. — 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

A man is not old as long as he is seeking something. — Jean Rostand

Kill a man and you're a murderer. Kill many and you're a conqueror. Kill them all, you're a god. — Jean Rostand

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

If a given scientist had not made a given discovery, someone else would have done so a little later. Johann Mendel dies unknown after having discovered the laws of heredity: thirty-five years later, three men rediscover them. But the book that is not written will never be written. The premature death of a great scientist delays humanity; that of a great writer deprives it. — Jean Rostand

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

To be adult is to be alone. — Jean Rostand

In art as in life the valid sacrifices are those that bring no income. — 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

Theories pass. The frog remains. — Jean Rostand

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

Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable. — 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

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

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

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

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

Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife; she has thought much worse things about you. — Jean Rostand

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

Marriage simplifies life and complicates the day. — Jean Rostand

The biologist passes. The frog stays the same. — Jean Rostand

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

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

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

On the brink of being satiated, desire still appears infinite. — Jean Rostand

Quotations
always inexact. I don't trust people who cannot even copy out. — Jean Rostand

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

We find it easy to believe that praise is sincere: why should anyone lie in telling us the truth? — Jean Rostand

There are some persons we could not cut down to size without diminishing ourselves as well. — Jean Rostand

Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill all and you are a God. — Jean Rostand

Kill one man, and you are murderer — Jean Rostand

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

Kill one man and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a conqueror. — Jean Rostand

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

God, that checkroom of our dreams. — Jean Rostand

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

To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts. — Jean Rostand

When I was young I pitied the old. Now old, it is the young I pity. — Jean Rostand

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

What makes our opponents useful is that they allow us to believe that without them we would be able to realize our goals. — Jean Rostand

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

The obligation to endure gives us the right to know. — Jean Rostand

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

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists. — Jean Rostand

There are things that don't deserve to be said briefly. — Jean Rostand

Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth. — Jean Rostand

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

To live is often to struggle toward goals one has no desire to reach. — Jean Rostand

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. — Jean Rostand

What scientist would not long to go on living, if only to see how the little truths he has brought to light will grow up? — Jean Rostand

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. — Jean Rostand

There are big and little truths, but all belong to the same race. — Jean Rostand

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

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