Quotes By Andre Gide

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

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

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

Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.

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.

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

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

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

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

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

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

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

Not everyone can be an orphan.

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.

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.

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

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.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself-and thus make yourself indispensable.

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

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