Andre Gide Quotes

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

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

One completely overcomes only what one assimilates.

Our judgements about things vary according to the time left us to live -that we think is left us to live.

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

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

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime.

Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.

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

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.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.

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

A work of art is an exaggeration.

When you have nothing to say, or to hide, there is no need to be prudent.

The wise man is he who constantly wonders afresh.

Do not scorn little victories.

The wise man is astonished by anything.

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.

Never have I been able to settle in life. Always seated askew, as if on the arm of a chair; ready to get up, to leave.

Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up.

Faith can move mountains; true: mountains of stupidity.

Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves!

Drunkenness is never anything but a substitute for happiness.

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

Most often it happens that one attributes to others only the feelings of which one is capable oneself.

The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.

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

There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.

God lies ahead. I convince myself and constantly repeat to myself that: He depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.

'Therefore' is a word the poet must not know.

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

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

Man's responsibility increases as that of the gods decreases.

The world will be saved by one or two people.

The bad novelist constructs his characters; he directs them and makes them speak. The true novelist listens to them and watches them act; he hears their voices even before he knows them.

Our deeds attach themselves to us like the flame to phosphorus. They constitute our brilliance, to be sure, but only in so far as they consume us.

Not everyone can be an orphan.

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.

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.

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.

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

Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.

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

So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

Each thought becomes an anxiety in my brain. I am becoming the ugliest of all things: a busy man.

True eloquence forgoes eloquence.

If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one's youth, one's greatest indignation would be for what one has become.

How do you know that the fruit is ripe? Simply because it leaves the branch.