12 Quotes & Sayings By Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland (January 29, 1866 – November 10, 1946) was a French writer and Nobel laureate. He is best known for his novel Jean-Christophe, which helped introduce existentialism to the English-speaking world. Born in Paris, Rolland was the son of a country doctor. His mother died when he was eight years old, and he was sent to live with his father in Briey-en-Forêt Read more

As a boy, Rolland made many visits to the local abbey to hear the monks recite the hours of the day. Later, as a young man living in Paris, Rolland became interested in writing after reading Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris. He began writing poetry and essays but soon turned to literature.

His first novel, Jean-Christophe (1912), was published when he was twenty-three years old. It received immediate acclaim. After World War I broke out, Rolland joined the French Army as an officer of the artillery.

He participated in the Battle of Verdun and became known as "the gunner of Verdun." He served until René Viviani's government was overthrown by Georges Clemenceau's dictatorship in early 1917. After the war ended in November 1918, Rolland continued to write poems and essays on political themes. He also translated into French Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1922).

In 1922, his life changed forever when he met Henri Bergson at a dinner party given by Paul Valéry. The two men became friends and collaborated on several projects before parting ways. Rolland published his short story collection Le Plus Long Qu'un Jour (The Longest Day) in 1925 and his play La Véritable Histoire du Soldat Perdu (The True Story of a Lost Soldier) two years later.

Jean-Christophe received its first American publication in 1926 with publication by Houghton Mifflin Company. The book sold over 500,000 copies within five months of its release. It has since been translated into thirty languages across the world including Japanese where it is known as Seinen Jidai Toriko no Monogatari or The Tale of Youthful Treachery according to Drury Lane Press who have published it in trade paperback format on May 19th 2011.

If a man is to shed the light of the...
1
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...
2
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it. Romain Rolland
3
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
4
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
5
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
6
Everything is music for the born musician. Romain Rolland
7
No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself. Romain Rolland
8
A hero is a man who does what he can. Romain Rolland
9
It is the artist's business to create sunshine when the sun fails. Romain Rolland
10
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
11
One makes mistakes that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved. Romain Rolland