Romain Rolland Quotes

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

~ Romain Rolland

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

~ Romain Rolland

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.

~ 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.

~ Romain Rolland

Islands of memory begin to rise above the river of his life. At first they are little uncharted islands, rocks just peeping above the surface of the waters. Round about them and behind in the twilight of the dawn stretches the great untroubled sheet of water; then new islands, touched to gold by the sun.

~ Romain Rolland

Everything is music for the born musician.

~ Romain Rolland

No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself.

~ Romain Rolland

A hero is a man who does what he can.

~ Romain Rolland

A hero is a man who does what he can.

~ Romain Rolland

A hero is a man who does what he can.

~ Romain Rolland

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

~ Romain Rolland

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.

~ Romain Rolland