75 Quotes by Romain Rolland

The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest.

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

But perhaps there are in us forces other than mind and heart, other even than the senses - mysterious forces which take hold of us in the moments when the others are asleep; and perhaps it was such forces that Melchior had found in the depths of those pale eyes which had looked at him so timidly one evening when he had accosted the girl on the bank of the river, and had sat down beside her in the reeds - without knowing why - and had given her his hand.

Everything is music for the born musician.

But did he then love God, or was it only the music, as an impudent priest said to him one day in jest, without thinking of the unhappiness which his quip might cause in him? Anybody else would not have paid any attention to it, and would not have changed his mode of living--(so many people put up with not knowing what they think!) But Christophe was cursed with an awkward need for sincerity, which filled him with scruples at every turn. And when scruples came to him they possessed him forever.

Most men die at twenty or thirty; thereafter they are only reflections of themselves: for the rest of their lives they are aping themselves, repeating from day to day more and more mechanically and affectedly what they said and did and thought and loved when they were alive.

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

إن الكتاب النفيس سرّ لا تفوه به الشفاه ، لكن تتحدث به القلوب

مهما كان الألم الذي يفجع به الإنسان وهو في مقتبل عمره في عزيز لديه ، فإن ذلك يكون أخف وقعا على النفس مما لوحدث في سن متأخرة بعد أن تكون الحياة قد نضب معينها