Jean Rostand Quotes

55 Sourced Quotes

If there is one notion that clearly emerges from the history of science, and from which we can learn something, it is, I believe, the extreme diversity of the personal qualities and abilities that have contributed to the advancement of our knowledge.

Jean Rostand
It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.

Jean Rostand
I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of books.

Jean Rostand
What scientist would not long to go on living, if only to see how the little truths he has brought to light will grow up?

Jean Rostand
Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.

Jean Rostand
We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.

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

Jean Rostand
Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.

Jean Rostand
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
Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.

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

Jean Rostand
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
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
I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under their own glance.

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

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

Jean Rostand
Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.

Jean Rostand
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
If a given scientist had not made a given discovery, someone else would have done so a little later. Johann Mendel dies unknown after having discovered the laws of heredity: thirty-five years later, three men rediscover them. But the book that is not written will never be written. The premature death of a great scientist delays humanity; that of a great writer deprives it.

Jean Rostand
Kill a man, one is a murderer; kill a million, a conqueror; kill them all, a God.

Jean Rostand
Far too often the choices reality proposes are such as to take away one's taste for choosing.

Jean Rostand
Whether man is disposed to yield to nature or to oppose her, he cannot do without a correct understanding of her language.

Jean Rostand
It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls.

Jean Rostand
It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.

Jean Rostand
The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.

Jean Rostand