Andre Gide Quotes

1869-1951, French Author
quotes
24
topics
12
Origin
Topic
“Not everyone can be an orphan.”
Orphan
“Sin is whatever obscures the soul.”
Sin
“Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.”
Argument
“The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.”
Talent
“A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.”
VerifiedThe Journals of André Gide: 1914-1927, A.A. Knopf, 1951, p. 313 · evidenceGoals
“Believe those who are seeking truth, doubt those who find it.”
Truth
“The abominable effort to take one's sins with one to paradise.”
VerifiedDetached Pages, entry for 1913 · evidenceParadise
“It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.”
Purpose
“There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.”
Prejudice
“Are you then unable to recognize unless it has the same sound as yours?”
Empathy
“Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.”
Compliments
“Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.”
Death and Dying
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
VerifiedAutumn Leaves, Philosophical eLibrary, 2012, (Feuillets d'automne, 1941, trans. Jeanine Parisier Plottel) · evidenceHatred
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
Action
“The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.”
VerifiedEntry for November 23, 1940 · evidenceArts and Artists
“Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.”
Literature
“Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.”
Giving
“Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.”
VerifiedLiterature and Ethics, entry for 1901 · evidenceHumankind
“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.”
Peace
“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.”
VerifiedDetached Pages, entry for 1913 · evidenceTheory
“The most decisive actions of our life -- I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future -- are, more often than not, unconsidered.”
VerifiedLes Faux Monnayeurs (1925), Pt. 3, ch. 16 · evidenceImpulse
“Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.”
Knowledge
“It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.”
Ideas
“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.”
VerifiedEntry for January 21, 1929 · evidencePrayer