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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

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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
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More quotes by Jean Rostand

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Kill one man, and you are murderer.
Jean Rostand
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I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
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The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.
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Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.
Jean Rostand
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On tue un homme, on est un assassin. On tue des millions d'hommes, on est un conquérant. On les tue tous, on est un dieu. Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
Jean Rostand
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Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.
Jean Rostand
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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
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My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.
Jean Rostand
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One kills a man, one is an assassin one kills millions, one is a conqueror one kills everybody, one is a god.
Jean Rostand
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There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
Jean Rostand
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Kill one man and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a conqueror.
Jean Rostand
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The biologist passes. The frog stays the same.
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It is horrible to see everything that one detested in the past coming back wearing the colors of the future.
Jean Rostand
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Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts.
Jean Rostand
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Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god.
Jean Rostand
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When I was young I pitied the old. Now old, it is the young I pity.
Jean Rostand
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Theories pass. The frog remains.
Jean Rostand
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We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.
Jean Rostand
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God, that checkroom of our dreams.
Jean Rostand
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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