ROMAIN ROLLAND

A hero is a man who does what he can.

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

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

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

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.

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

I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.

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.

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.

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

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

A great nation assailed by war has not only its frontiers to protect: it must also protect its good sense. It must protect itself from the hallucinations, injustices, and follies which the plague lets loose.

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

As a result of all his education, from everything he hears and sees around him, the child absorbs such a lot of lies and foolish nonsense, mixed in with essential truths, that the first duty of the adolescent who wants to be a healthy man is to disgorge it all.

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.

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.

You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things.

The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe.

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.

To understand everything is to hate nothing.

Passion is like genius: a miracle.

It is not peace that I seek, but life.

Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous.

There is only one necessary condition for the emergence of a new theatre, that the stage and auditorium should be open to the masses, should be able to contain a people and the actions of a people.

When nothing hampers action, the soul has fewer reasons for action.