There are moments when very little truth would be enough to shape opinion. One might be hated at extremely low cost.
Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.
Literature: proclaiming in front of everyone what one is careful to conceal from one's immediate circle
To be able to observe with a stranger's eye helps one to see with an artist's eye. What alienates us inspires.
If a given scientist had not made a given discovery, someone else would have done so a little later. Johann Mendel dies unknown after having discovered the laws of heredity: thirty-five years later, three men rediscover them. But the book that is not written will never be written. The premature death of a great scientist delays humanity; that of a great writer deprives it.
Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.
The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to.
It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.
On the brink of being satiated, desire still appears infinite.
Falsity cannot keep an idea from being beautiful; there are certain errors of such ingenuity that one could regret their not ranking among the achievements of the human mind.
Le biologiste passe, la grenouille reste. The biologist passes, the frog remains.
Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.
To be adult is to be alone.
We find it easy to believe that praise is sincere: why should anyone lie in telling us the truth?
To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.
Kill one man and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a conqueror.
Kill one man, and you are murderer.
We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.
A body of work such as Pasteur's is inconceivable in our time: no man would be given a chance to create a whole science. Nowadays a path is scarcely opened up when the crowd begins to pour in.
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.
Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.
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.
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.
There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.
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