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Home
Authors
Jean Rostand
French
Scientist
About the author
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,
French
Scientist
#Want
#Past
#Books
#Surprises
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,
French
Scientist
#Chance
#Work
#Science
#Man
#Body
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,
French
Scientist
#Power
#Humanity
A married couple are well suited when both partners usually feel the need for a quarrel at the same time.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Time
#Quarrel
Already at the origin of the species man was equal to what he was destined to become.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Man
Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Art
#Nothing
#Beauty
#Ugliness
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,
French
Scientist
#Day
#Science
#Truth
#Future
#Error
#Perspective
#Intuition
A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Man
#Old
I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under their own glance.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Appearance
Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Nothing
#Truth
Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Nothing
#Wealth
Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife; she has thought much worse things about you.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Wife
#Remorse
#Thought
My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Sincerity
#Pessimism
Kill a man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#God
#Man
#Men
It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Deep
#Opinion
It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#May
#Thoughts
It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Attention
#Error
It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Forget
#Science
One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#God
#Man
In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Today
#Politics
#Lie
#Yesterday
In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Day
#Order
#Party
I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Right
#Hell
#Paradise
I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of books.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Books
#Lies
#Reality
#Jargon
I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Criticism
#Opposition
#Praise
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,
French
Scientist
#Man
#Hatred
Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Gain
#Order
#Greatness
God, that dumping ground of our dreams.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#God
#Dreams
Far too often the choices reality proposes are such as to take away one's taste for choosing.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Reality
#Choices
#Taste
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,
French
Scientist
#Being
#Idea
#Mind
#Regret
#Errors
Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Nothing
#Feeling
#Ability
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,
French
Scientist
#Work
To be adult is to be alone.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
We spend our time envying people whom we wouldn't wish to be.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Time
#People
I still understand a few words in life, but I no longer think they make a sentence.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Life
#Words
One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Order
#Credit
We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Modesty
Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Fight
#Truth
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,
French
Scientist
#Man
#Men
To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Love
#Idea
Think? Why think! We have computers to do that for us.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Computers
There are moments when very little truth would be enough to shape opinion. One might be hated at extremely low cost.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Truth
#Opinion
#Moments
There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Past
#Men
#Future
#Moments
Theories pass. The frog remains.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Theories
Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Being
#Science
#Men
#Gods
One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Interest
To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Thoughts
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,
French
Scientist
#Will
#Respect
#Contempt
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,
French
Scientist
#End
#Cure
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,
French
Scientist
#Stupidity
#Faith
#Cruelty
#Direction
#Falsehood
#Vanity
Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Being
#Nobility
The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#God
#Man
#Quality
The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Enemies
#Doubt
The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.
Jean Rostand,
French
Scientist
#Power
#Vocation