Quotes By Jean Rostand

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.

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

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.

To be adult is to be alone.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.

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

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

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

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.

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

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