André Gide Quotes

There's no better cure for the fear of taking after one's father, than not to know who he is.

Long only for what you have.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

One should want only one thing and want it constantly. Then one is sure of getting it. But I desire ...

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with ...

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

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

Seize from every moment its unique novelty and do not prepare your joys.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them...

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with...

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

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

Through loyalty to the past our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if tod...

A work of art is an exaggeration.

Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

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

The color of truth is gray.

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if tod...

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

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Nothing is good for everyone but only relatively to some people.

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be tol...

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

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

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning a...

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has eve...

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

It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.

What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of shore for a very long time.

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

The scholar seeks the artist finds.

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

One completely overcomes only what one assimilates.

The secret seemed to me much more mysterious than that; it was the secret, I thought, of one who had...

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

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-impo...

To win one's joy through struggle is better than to yield to melancholy.

I hoped at first to find a rather more direct comprehension of life in one or two novelists and poet...

To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and tra...

Those who complimented me were those who understood me the least.

I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, ...

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.

If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one's youth one's greatest indignation would be f...

Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else coul...

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.

The color of truth is grey.

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

I do not want to recollect. I should be afraid of preventing the future and of allowing the past to ...

Because it was natural, could he not see that it was marvelous? Poor creature!

She already loved me too much to see me as I was.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

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

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

What would be the description of happines? Nothing, except what prepares and then what destroys it, ...

God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.

He who wants a rose must respect her thorn.

To tell the truth, my dear count, I must own that of all nauseating human emanations, literature is ...

I intend to bring you strength, joy, courage, perspicacity, defiance.

In other people's company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring...

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

Nothing can make a face more impenetrable than the mask of kindliness.

There is a germ of revolt lying in the spirit of inquiry and critical curiosity.

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — bec...

Those who have eyes…do not know their happiness.

He let Julius go. There was beginning to rise in him a feeling of profound disgust--a kind of hatred...

This is my thesis: Do you know what is needful to turn an honest man into a rogue! A change of scene...

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

I do not love men: I love what devours them.

We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of oursel...

When I was younger, I used to make resolutions, which I imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious t...

One can always find hands for a work of destruction.

Sadness is a state of sin.

In a world in which everyone cheats, it's the honest man who passes for a charlatan.

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

Nothing thwarts happiness so much as the memory of happiness.

Yet I'm sure there's something more to be read in a man. People dare not -- they dare not turn the p...

Do you know why our poetry today and especially our philosophy are such dead issues? Because they've...

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

I say, "it seemed to me," for from the depths of my past childhood, there now awoke in me the glimme...

No encounter occured that day, and I was glad of it; I took out of my pocket a little Homer I had no...

I have always thought that great artists were those who dared to confer the right of beauty on thing...

What another would have done as well as you do not do it. What another would have said as well as y...

The world will be saved by one or two people.

Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined ...

Will it be here that we shall find a place which will not elude us, or which if it remains does not ...

But I think there comes a point in love, a unique moment which later on the soul seeks in vain to su...

Most people believe it is only by constraint they can get any good out of themselves, and so they li...

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

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

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.