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“He was indeed the epitome of contemporary scientists who, like Mathieu and Einstein himself, as soon as they had achieved some decisive scientific triumph, would start immediately to sign every possible protest against its consequences, running in circles and tearing their hair, whining that theirs was “labor of love,” a pure, disinterested pursuit and that, in Kaiser Wilhelm’s words after he saw the carnage of the First World War, which he had started, “ich habe das nicht gewollt,” that “this is not what I wanted.” Mathieu hated them almost as much as he hated himself. He was one of them, a full ranking member of the club, and this awareness was eating him alive. His only trace of dignity lay in the fact that he was not lying to himself about it. He knew that research, scientific pursuit was a compulsion, and inner must, and an addiction and that the attitude that consists in passing the buck to society as far as the practical consequences of ”pure,” “disinterested,” scientific accomplishment were concerned was mere whitewash, alibi and a refusal to acknowledge both responsibility and self indulgence.”

HumanityHuman NatureScientistsSelf IndulgenceIrresponsibilityThe GaspSciencPure ScienceScientific PursuitsTrue Science
Author:Romain Gary
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“Mathieu didn’t know at all what to do about May. He felt a kind of nausea, probably induced by the regular movement of the ball. She was having religious fits again. Jesus Christ, she thought, how many thousands of years will it take people to get over their folklore? There was nothing he could do about that now. She wouldn’t listen to all the scientific explanations and would go on imagining things. People will always keep imagining things. It was impossible to convince them that there is nothing there. Nothing at all. Only matter. Particles. Energy.”

ReligionHuman NatureThere Is No GodReligion Vs ScienceThe GaspFolklore And MythologyReligious Fits
Book:The Gasp
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“Never say die. You have to be mad, it’s true, to keep going and hope, but the first reptile who dragged his belly out of the water a million years ago to live on land without lungs and tried to breathe all the same — he too was mad. In the end the reptile became a man. We must always try to do the best we can — perhaps one day well become human, who knows.”

Human NatureSurvivalDo Your BestStrive To Become A Better YouBe Humane
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“The obstinacy of those people is funny. That someone may simply be fed up with them and their ways and may want to look for another company, that just cannot enter their heads. They can’t believe it. There must be a trick behind it, a dishonest trick, something crooked, something political, something they can understand. They’re so used to sniffing at their own behinds that when someone wants to get a breath of fresh air, to turn at last to something different, and more important, and threatened, something that's got to be saved at all costs, it's quite beyond them.”

Human NatureSincerityWestern CivilizationWestern CultureCallousnessBelief In Humanity
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“To the people, Morel was the hero of a cause that had nothing to do with nations and political ideologies, a cause that had nothing to do with Africa and touched what was deepest in them — a secret rancor — a confused dream of being able one day to emerge victorious from the difficulty of being a man. They were staking a claim to respectful and decent treatment.”

Human NatureHumankindBeing AliveRancorBeing A ManDeepest Feelings Of LifeDeepest Self
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“As I say, I knew him well: it was I who, twenty years before, had got him his first scholarship in Paris. I had several times, in those distant days, sent him money taken from my own meager pay, in response to pressing letters, and of course he had never forgiven me for that. I did not blame him: I preferred ingratitude to servility. Later — much later — he had toured my territory as a member of Parliament and, on his return to Brazzaville, had had a great deal to say about me: apparently, I wasn’t doing anything to ‘free the backward tribes from the servitude of the past/ In that, too, he was right: I am in no hurry to do so. On the contrary, I have a more and more irresistible longing not only to preserve intact the customs and rites of the African forest, but sometimes even to share in them myself.”

HumanityHuman NatureAfricaEducated PeopleAfrican CMen Relationship
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“Behind him stood Wa’itari, who believed that a new world war was imminent and who expected to appear after the fall of Europe, as the first hero of Pan-African nationalism. Behind them stood, as in the shadow of all great causes, mere bandits and murderers, as a pledge of earthly triumph. Behind them again, the silent awakening mass of the black peoples whose hour was striking, whatever happened. Behind them again, very far behind, and perhaps only in Morel’s heart, came the elephants. 'It was in fact a great cause, with the company a great cause always keeps: men of good will and those who exploit them, generous endeavor and sordid calculations, an ideal over the horizon, but also the treachery of ends justifying means. Man’s oldest company, I tell you, a noble cause and a pack of scoundrels behind it, a generous dream and all the purity that’s needed to cause great massacres ...”

HumanityHuman NatureWarsRevolutionsHuman Kind
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“Well, I’m damned,' cried the student in exasperation. 'Do for once answer me directly, instead of sliding out of everything! Are you for the liberty of the people, yes or no?' Morel had instinctively opened his mouth to reply but stopped in time. It wasn’t worth it. If they still hadn’t understood, it was because they hadn’t got it in them. You either have or haven't. They weren't the only ones who had not. Obviously, humanity was not capable of respecting that elbow room, that margin, if civilization was not willing to burden itself with the elephants among other difficulties. If society insisted on considering this margin a luxury — well! Man himself would in the end become a useless luxury.”

HumanityHuman NatureCivilizationLuxuryHumankindCivilization Vs Nature
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“I’m coming round to the belief that colonialism hasn’t been a harsh enough school for them, that it hasn’t taught them enough about things — that French colonialism has, in spite of everything, treated nature with a certain respect. They’ve still got a lot to learn, and French people don’t give that kind of lesson. The men of their own race will take care of that. One day they’ll have their Stalins, their Hitlers, and their Napoleons, their Fuhrers and their Duces, and then their very blood will cry out to demand respect for nature. That day they will understand.”

Human NatureCivilizationColonialismHitlerViolence In SocietyStalinLessons Of LifeCivilization Vs Nature
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“All who come to me with help are welcome. Nationalism, you know — whether it's white hunters or black hunters, the old ones or the new ones — I’m against 'em all. I'm on the side of anyone who will take the necessary steps.' [...] He added as if incidentally, 'I was in the Resistance, during the Occupation. I fought not so much to defend France against Germany, but to defend elephants against hunters.”

Human NatureHuman RightsHumankindHuntersSave LivesSave Animals
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“Morel is afflicted with too noble a conception of man. He demands too much of human beings, and he refiLses to compromise. You can’t live with that inside you. It becomes almost a question of physiology. What he calls for is not even moral progress; it's really a biological mutation. He can’t accept the very biological limitations which make us what we are — weak, crawling in our mud, and totally devoid of dignity. That's the iron law he’s protesting, the law he refuses to submit to.”

HumanityHuman NatureWeaknessDignityTruth Of Life
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“-Would you wish us to invest it for you? -No, I would like you to set up a trust for dumb animals. -What kind of dumb animals do you have in mind, Miss Donahue? -Oh, stray dogs. Rats. Birds. -We could still invest it for you. Then the animals would get the income without touching the capital. -No, I don't wish to invest it. I don't want them to get rich. They might become human.”

Human NatureCynical Humor
Book:خداحافظ گاری کوپر
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