Jean Rostand Quotes

We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds. It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed. It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths. 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. To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should. 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. The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same. One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void. I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell. God, that checkroom of our dreams. There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past. God, that dumping ground of our dreams. To hate fatigues. Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable. Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.