Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jean Rostand
Age: 82 †
Born: 1894
Born: October 30
Died: 1977
Died: September 4
Biologist
Historian
Philosopher
Writer
Paris
France
Worse
Judgment
Built
Whose
Ideal
Certain
Basis
Men
Bases
Think
Ideals
Thinking
Image

More quotes by Jean Rostand

Image
It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.
Jean Rostand
Image
God, that checkroom of our dreams.
Jean Rostand
Image
Marriage simplifies life and complicates the day.
Jean Rostand
Image
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.
Jean Rostand
Image
My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.
Jean Rostand
Image
One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.
Jean Rostand
Image
Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.
Jean Rostand
Image
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.
Jean Rostand
Image
The biologist passes. The frog stays the same.
Jean Rostand
Image
Le biologiste passe, la grenouille reste. The biologist passes, the frog remains.
Jean Rostand
Image
What makes our opponents useful is that they allow us to believe that without them we would be able to realize our goals.
Jean Rostand
Image
Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts.
Jean Rostand
Image
Kill one man, and you are murderer.
Jean Rostand
Image
Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.
Jean Rostand
Image
On the brink of being satiated, desire still appears infinite.
Jean Rostand
Image
We bestow on others praise in which we do not believe, on condition that in return they bestow upon us praise in which we do.
Jean Rostand
Image
Quotations--always inexact. I don't trust people who cannot even copy out.
Jean Rostand
Image
There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
Jean Rostand
Image
I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
Jean Rostand
Image
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.
Jean Rostand