Jean Rostand
30 quotations
A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.
There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.
God, that dumping ground of our dreams.
God, that checkroom of our dreams.
Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.
To hate fatigues.
To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.
One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.
It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.
We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.
It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.
I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.
In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.
In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.
The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.
I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of books.
It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.
Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.
Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.
The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.
Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.
One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.
To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.