Jean Rostand
» Admiration » “The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.”
» Adulthood » “To be adult is to be alone.”
» Age and Aging » “A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.”
» Agreement » “It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls.”
» Aphorisms and Epigrams » “Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.”
» Beauty » “Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.”
» Belief » “The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.”
» Books and Reading » “The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn’t write them again, and wouldn’t want to.”
» Books and Reading » “Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.”
» Critics and Criticism » “Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.”
» Fame » “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..”
» Future » “There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.”
» God » “God, that checkroom of our dreams.”
» God » “God, that dumping ground of our dreams.”
» Government » “I don’t judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.”
» Greatness » “Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.”
» Hatred » “To hate fatigues.”
» Ideals and Idealism » “The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.”
» Ideas » “To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.”
» Involvement » “One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.”
» Judgment and Judges » “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.”
» Mistakes » “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.”
» Mistakes » “It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.”
» Modesty » “We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.”
» Opinions » “It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.”
» Paradise » “I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.”
» Politicians and Politics » “In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one’s party three times a day.”
» Politicians and Politics » “In politics, yesterday’s lie is attacked only to flatter today’s.”
» Power » “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.”
» Power » “The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.”
» Prejudice » “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.”
» Purity » “We are not na
