Quotes from Jean Rostand

To be adult is to be alone (etre adulte, c'est etre seul).

My pessimism goes to the point of suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists.

Kill one man, and you are murderer.

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.

Kill one man and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a conqueror.

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

Hatred, for the man who is not engaged in it, is a little like the odor of garlic for one who hasn't eaten any.

The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.

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

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.

We are not naïve enough to ask for pure men; we ask merely for men whose impurity does not conflict with the obligations of their job.

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

The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.

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

To be adult is to be alone.

On the brink of being satiated, desire still appears infinite.

Being right is less important to us than the freedom to be wrong.

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.

A married couple are well suited when both partners usually feel the need for a quarrel at the same time.