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.
Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.
Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt.
Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.
I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
Think? Why think! We have computers to do that for us.
The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.
Already at the origin of the species man was equal to what he was destined to become.
God, that dumping ground of our dreams.
To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.
To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.
It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.
One must either take an interest in the human situation or else parade before the void.
In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.
The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.
Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls.
The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.
The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to.
Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.
