Romain Rolland Quotes

There is only one heroism in the world: to see the world as it is, and to love it.

There is no joy other than the joy of creating. There is no man who is truly alive other than one who is creating. All others are just shadows on the earth with nothing to do with being alive. The joy of living, whether it is love or action, is the joy of creating.

No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books.

Most men are essentially dead by thirty.

To understand everything is to hate nothing.

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

Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.

Everyone, deep down within, carries a small cemetery of those he has loved.

Any man who is really a man must learn to be alone in the midst of others, to think alone for others, and, if necessary, against others.

One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved.

The friend who understands you, creates you.

A hero is a man who does what he can.

Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day.

To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.

Passion is like genius: a miracle.

If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.

The greatest human ideal is the great cause of bringing together the thoughts of Europe and Asia; the great soul of India will topple our world.

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

There are some dead who are more alive than the living.

Every race, every art has its hypocrisy. The world is fed with a little truth and many lies.

Each man must learn his own ideal and try to accomplish it: that is a surer way of progress than to take the ideas of another.

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

Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach, but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief.

The more a man lives, the more a man creates, the more a man loves and loses those whom he loves, the more does he escape from death. With every new blow that we have to bear, with every new work that we round and finish, we escape from ourselves, we escape into the work we have created, the soul we have loved, the soul that has left us.

You are a vain fellow. You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things. A hero!... I don't quite know what that is: but, you see, I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.