Quotes from Romain Rolland

It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.

I know at last what distinguishes man from animals; financial worries.

Take possession of the air, submit the elements, penetrate the last redoubts of nature, make space retreat, make death retreat.

Let us return to our eagle's nest in the Himalayas. It is waiting for us, for it is ours, eaglets of Europe, we need not renounce any part of our real nature...whence we formerly took our flight.

If a man is to shed the light of the sun upon other men, he must first of all have it within himself.

No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself.

It is not peace that I seek, but life.

I would rather have this life of combat than the moral calm and mournful stupor of these last years. God give me struggle, enemies, howling crowds, all the combot of which I am capable.

Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the way for the faith of tomorrow.

Every man who is truly a man must learn to be alone in the midst of all the others, and if need be against all the others.

It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails.

A limited number of types,good and bad serve for all ages.

Zijn jullie kinderen van Goethe of van Atilla voeren jullie oorlog tegen de legers of tegen de mensheid, dood de mensen maar respecteer hun werken!

how often', he said,'does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them.

Pouvres moutons! Si nous n`avions à nous défendre que du loup, nous saurions bien nous en garder. Mais qui nous gardera du berger?

Let each man have his share of sun and shade

Islands of memory begin to rise above the river of his life. At first they are little uncharted islands, rocks just peeping above the surface of the waters. Round about them and behind in the twilight of the dawn stretches the great untroubled sheet of water; then new islands, touched to gold by the sun.

Above all race questions, which are for the most part a mask behind which pride crouches and the interests of the financial or aristocratic classes dissemble, there is a law of humanity, eternal and universal, of which we are all the servants and guardians; it is that of the right of a people to rule themselves. And he who violates shall be the enemy of all.

Of what use are such as cannot serve! Yet these are the most innocent victims of this war. They have not taken part in it, and nothing had prepared them for such calamities.

Europe is like a besieged town. Fever is raging. Whoever will not rave like the rest is suspected. And in these hurried times when justice cannot wait to study evidence, every suspect is a traitor.

We cannot stop the war, but we can make it less bitter. There are medicines for the body. We need medicines for the soul, to dress the wounds of hatred and vengeance by which the world is being poisoned.

One day History will pass judgment on each of the nations at war; she will weigh their measure of errors, lies, and heinous follies. Let us try and make ours light before her!

The newspapers of both countries give publicity only to prejudiced stories unfavorable to the enemy. One would imagine that they devote themselves to collecting only the worst cases, in order to preserve the atmosphere of hatred; and those to which they give predominance are often doubtful and always exceptional.

They were the only members of their family, and they were both humble, crushed, and thrust aside by life; they were united in sadness and tenderness by a bond of mutual pity and common suffering, borne in secret. With the Kraffts—robust, noisy, brutal, solidly built for living, and living joyously—these two weak, kindly creatures, out of their setting, so to speak, outside life, understood and pitied each other without ever saying anything about it.