Andre Gide Quotes

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

Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.

Not everyone can be an orphan.

There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.

It is one of life's laws that as soon as one door closes another opens. But the tragedy is we look at the closed door and disregard the open one.

Wisdom comes not from reason but from love.

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.

The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.

It is the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing.

Solitude is bearable only with God.

There are admirable potentialities in every human being.

I find just as much profit in cultivating my hates as my loves.

To win ones joy through struggle is better than to yield to melancholy.

The great artist is one whom constraint exalts, for whom the obstacle is a springboard.

Too chaste a youth leads to a dissolute old age.

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.

Often with good sentiments we produce bad literature.

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

From the satisfaction of desire there may arise, accompanying joy and as it were sheltering behind it, something not unlike despair.

Too chaste an adolescence makes for a dissolute old age. It is doubtless easier to give up something one has known than something one imagines.

The miser puts his gold pieces into a coffer; but as soon as the coffer is closed, it is as if it were empty.

The abominable effort to take one’s sins with one to paradise.

Whither should we aim if not towards God?

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

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.

The greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers the most from its own limitations.

Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death

Let every emotion be capable becoming an intoxication to you. If what you eat fails to make you drunk, it is because you are not hungry enough.

The individual man tries to escape the race. And as soon as he ceases to represent the race, he represents man.

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

Every perfect action is accompanied by pleasure. By that you can tell what you ought to do.

Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessors of happiness

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

Long only for what you have.

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

To love the truth is to refuse to let oneself be saddened by it.

The most decisive actions of life are most often unconsidered actions.

A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.

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

Do not think your truth can be found by anyone else.

Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it.

The nationalist has a broad hatred and a narrow love.

There is no feeling so simple that it is not immediately complicated and distorted by introspection.

Enduring fame is promised only to those writers who can offer to successive generations a substance constantly renewed; for every generation arrives upon the scene with its own particular hunger.

He who makes great demands upon himself is naturally inclined to make great demands on others.

Actions whose motives he cannot understand that is, actions not prompted by the hope of profit.

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

Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.

Sadness is a state of sin.

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