Jean Rostand Quotes
It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of. It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths. It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls. It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed. Kill a man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone, and you are a god. 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. Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth. Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth. One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god. One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it. One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void. 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. Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men. 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. 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. Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are. The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to. The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God. The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.
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