Andre Gide Quotes

When intelligent people pride themselves on not understanding, it is quite natural they should succeed better than fools. ~ Andre Gide

I believe that in every circumstance I have been able to see rather clearly the most advantageous course I could follow, which is very rarely the one I did follow. ~ Andre Gide

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it. ~ Andre Gide

Will it be here that we shall find a place which will not elude us, or which if it remains does not exert on us a culpable attraction? Or must we, leaning over the deck and watching the shores glide by, move forever onward? ~ Andre Gide

I do not love men: I love what devours them. ~ Andre Gide

I hated the homes, the families, all the places where man thinks to find rest. ~ Andre Gide

Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented. ~ Andre Gide

The anxiety we have for the figure we cut, for our personage, is constantly cropping out. We are showing off and are often more concerned with making a display than with living. Whoever feels observed observes himself. ~ Andre Gide

We are readying ourselves to enter a long tunnel full of blood and darkness (Andre Gide, 28 July 1914) ~ Max Hastings

To understand is nothing, but to be understood-that is the problem and the source of anguish. The soul throbs and would have the other know-but can not and feels isolated. Then come gestures, words, awkward explanations and material symbols for imponderable outbursts of feeling-and the soul despairs. ~ Andre Gide

Nothing blocks happiness like happiness remembered. ~ Andre Gide

Great minds tend toward banality. It is the noblest effort of individualism. But it implies a sort of modesty, which is so rare that it is scarcely found except in the greatest, or in beggars. ~ Andre Gide

Dare to be yourself ~ Andre Gide

They establish distinctions and reserves which I cannot apply to myself, for I exist only as a whole; my only claim is to be natural, and the pleasure I feel in an action, I take as a sign that I ought to do it. ~ Andre Gide

Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life. ~ Andre Gide

The pettiness of a mind can be measured by the pettiness of its adoration or its blasphemy. ~ Andre Gide

I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices. ~ Andre Gide

I say, "it seemed to me," for from the depths of my past childhood, there now awoke in me the glimmerings of a thousand lost sensations. The fact that I was once more aware of my senses enabled me to give them a half fearful recognition. Yes; my reawakened senses now remembered a whole ancient history of their own - recomposed for themselves a vanished past. They were alive! Alive! They had never ceased to live; they discovered that even during those early studious years they had been living their own latent, cunning life. ~ Andre Gide

The world will be saved by one or two people. ~ Andre Gide

There is a law in life: When one door closes to us another one opens. ~ Andre Gide

And who shall say how many passions and how many hostile thoughts may live together in the mind of man? ~ Andre Gide

Seize from every moment it's unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys. ~ Andre Gide

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice. ~ Andre Gide

We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It's absurd. We run the risk of warping what's best in us ~ Andre Gide

Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon. ~ Andre Gide

If life were organized, there would be no need for art. ~ Andre Gide

An experience teaches only the good observer; but far from seeking a lesson in it, everyone looks for an argument in experience, and everyone interprets the conclusion in his own way. ~ Andre Gide

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation. ~ Andre Gide

We who would seek new land must be willing to sacrifice the sight of shore for a long, long time. ~ Andre Gide

God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved. ~ Andre Gide

Only fools don't contradict themselves ~ Andre Gide

Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it. ~ Andre Gide

It is now, and in this world, that we must live. ~ Andre Gide

It is only through restraint that man can manage not to suppress himself. ~ Andre Gide

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. ~ Andre Gide

The work of art is the exaggeration of an idea. ~ Andre Gide

Those who have never been ill are incapable of real sympathy for a great many misfortunes ~ Andre Gide

The public always prefers to be reassured. There are those whose job this is. There are only too many. ~ Andre Gide

Looking at the works of art that are considered worthy of preservation in our Museums, and that were once the common objects of the market place, I could not but realise that a society can only be considered truly civilised when it is possible for every man to earn his living by the very work he would rather be doing than anything else in the world, a condition that has only been attained in social orders integrated on the basis of vocation, "svadharma".

At the same time I should like to emphasis that I have never built up a philosophy of my own or wished to establish a new school of thought. Perhaps the greatest thing I have learnt is never to think for myself; I fully agree with Andre Gide that "Toutes choses sont dites deja", and what I have sought is to understand what has been said, while taking no account of the "inferior philosophers". Holding with Heraclitus that the Word is common to all, and that Wisdom is to know the Will whereby all things are steered, I am convinced with Jeremias that the human cultures in all their apparent diversity are but the dialects of one and the same language of the spirit, that there is a "common universe of discourse" transcending the differences of tongues". ~ Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. It's their way of falling. ~ Andre Gide

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress. ~ Andre Gide

Poverty makes a slave out of men. In order to eat he will accept work that gives no pleasure. ~ Andre Gide

Throw away my book: you must understand that it represents only one of a thousand attitudes. You must find your own. If someone else could have done something as well as you, don't do it. If someone else could have said something as well as you, don't say it - or written something as well as you, don't write it. Grow fond only of that which you can find nowhere but in yourself, and create out of yourself, impatiently or patiently, ah! that most irreplaceable of beings. ~ Andre Gide

Those [who] assiduously fabricate for themselves a self-conscious originality, and after having made a choice of certain practices, their principal preoccupation is never to depart from them, to remain for ever on their guard and allow themselves not a moment's relaxation. ~ Andre Gide

The priest accepted me, I accepted the priest, so everything went off smoothly. ~ Andre Gide

I love life enough to prefer to live it awake. ~ Andre Gide

Not everyone can be an orphan. ~ Andre Gide

By the time a philospher answers a question weve usually forgotten what was asked. ~ Andre Gide

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them. ~ Andre Gide

The very things that separated me and distinguished me from other people were what mattered; the very things no one else would or could say, these were the things I had to say. ~ Andre Gide

Atheism. There is not a single exalting and emancipating influence that does not in turn become inhibitory. ~ Andre Gide

To be sure, theory is useful. But without warmth of heart and without love it bruises the very ones it claims to save. ~ Andre Gide

It is often so: the harder it is to hear, the more a truth is worth saying. ~ Andre Gide

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. ~ Andre Gide

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity. ~ Andre Gide

They also bring to mind what sometimes seems to be a rapt predilection of small but influential cults of intellectuals or esthetes for what is generally regarded as perverse dispirited or distastefully unintelligible. The award of a Nobel Prize in literature to Andre Gide who in his work fervently and openly insists that pederasty is the superior and preferable way of life for adolescent boys furnishes a memorable example of such judgments. Renowned critics and some professors in our best universities reverently acclaim as the superlative expression of genius James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake a 628page collection of erudite gibberish indistinguishable to most people from the familiar word salad produced by hebephrenic patients on the back wards of any state hospital. ~ Hervey M. Cleckley

Often with good sentiments we produce bad literature. ~ Andre Gide

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future. ~ Andre Gide

Nothing excellent can be done without leisure. ~ Andre Gide

When I was younger, I used to make resolutions which imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not growing old. ~ Andre Gide

A work of art is an exaggeration. ~ Andre Gide

Once I had made my mind up, I could see nothing but the advantages. ~ Andre Gide

Wisdom comes not from reason but from love. ~ Andre Gide

Understand that the only possession of any value is life. ~ Andre Gide

I have no use for knowledge that has not been preceded by a sensation ~ Andre Gide

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one. ~ Andre Gide

Chastity more rarely follows fear, or a resolution, or a vow, than it is the mere effect of lack of appetite and, sometimes even, of distaste. ~ Andre Gide

What eludes logic is the most precious element in us, and one can draw nothing from a syllogism that the mind has not put there in advance. ~ Andre Gide

If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn't hesitate to do so. ~ Andre Gide

The only really Christian art is that which, like St. Francis, does not fear being wedded to poverty. This rises far above art-as-ornament. ~ Andre Gide

Don't think that your truth could be found by someone else. ~ Andre Gide

An unprejudiced mind is probably the rarest thing in the world; to nonprejudice I attach the greatest value. ~ Andre Gide

To what a degree the same past can leave different marks - and especially admit of different interpretations. ~ Andre Gide

The things one feels are different about oneself are the things that are rare, that give each person their value - and these are the things they try to repress. The imitate and make out they love life! ~ Andre Gide

How would one tell a story about happiness? One can only tell of the origins of happiness and its destruction. ~ Andre Gide

The most beaten paths are certainly the surest, but do not hope to start much game on them. ~ Andre Gide

Drunkenness is never anything but a substitute for happiness. ~ Andre Gide

Knowing how to free oneself is nothing; the difficult thing is knowing how to live with that freedom. ~ Andre Gide

Everything which formerly distressed me is now a delicious pleasure. ~ Andre Gide

We live counterfeit lives in order to resemble the idea we first had of ourselves. ~ Andre Gide

No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond. ~ Andre Gide

Understanding is the beginning of approving. ~ Andre Gide

Rather than recount his life as he has lived it, he must live his life as he will recount it. ~ Andre Gide

But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits. ~ Andre Gide

With each book you write you should lose the admirers you gained with the previous one. ~ Andre Gide

Look! I have here a number of white pebbles. I let them soak in the shade, then hold them in the hollow of my hand and wait until their soothing coolness is exhausted. Then I begin once more, changing the pebbles and putting back those that have lost their coolness to soak in the shade again ... Time passes and the evening comes on ... Take me away; I cannot move of myself. Something in my will is broken. ~ Andre Gide

We call "happiness" a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy. ~ Andre Gide

In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself. ~ Andre Gide

I advise the young to tell themselves constantly that most often it is up to them alone. ~ Andre Gide

What seems different in yourself; that's the rare thing you possess. The one thing that gives each of us his worth, and that's just what we try to suppress. And we claim to love life. ~ Andre Gide

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness. ~ Andre Gide

Sadness is a state of sin. ~ Andre Gide

...Gradation; gradation; and then a sudden leap... ~ Andre Gide

Nothing is good for everyone, but only relatively to some people. ~ Andre Gide

What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it. ~ Andre Gide

The wise man is he who constantly wonders afresh. ~ Andre Gide

Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother's breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful ... Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun. ~ Andre Gide

The artist who is after success lets himself be influenced by the public. Generally such an artist contributes nothing new, for the public acclaims only what it already knows, what it recognizes. ~ Andre Gide

The novelist does not long to see the
lion eat grass. He realizes that one and
the same God created the wolf and the
lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his
work was good." ~ Andre Gide

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves. ~ Andre Gide