Jean Rostand

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.

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

A body of work such as Pasteur's is inconceivable in our time: no man would be given a chance to create a whole science. Nowadays a path is scarcely opened up when the crowd begins to pour in.

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

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.

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.

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.

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

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

One kills a man, one is an assassin one kills millions, one is a conqueror one kills everybody, one is a god.

There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.

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.

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.

God, that dumping ground of our dreams.

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

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.

To be adult is to be alone.