André Gide
61 quotes
Biography
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author whose writing spanned a wide variety of styles and topics. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature.
"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."
"Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason."
"The color of truth is grey."
"I do not love men: I love what devours them."
"Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings."
"God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved."
"He who wants a rose must respect her thorn."
"What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it."
"Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves."
"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."
"The most decisive actions of our life... are most often unconsidered actions."
"La sagesse n'est pas dans la raison, mais dans l'amour."
"Familles, je vous hais! foyers clos; portes refermées; possessions jalouses du bonheur."
"...que toute émotion sache te devenir une ivresse. Si ce que tu manges ne te grise pas, c'est que tu n'avais pas assez faim."
"Ce qu'un autre aurait aussi bien fait que toi, ne le fais pas. Ce qu'un autre aurait aussi bien dit que toi, ne le dis pas, — aussi bien écrit que toi, ne l'écris pas. Ne t'attache en toi qu'à ce que tu sens qui n'est nulle part ailleurs qu'en toi-même, et crée de toi, impatiemment ou patiemment, ah! le plus irremplaçable des êtres."
"True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one's own the suffering and joys of others."
"Le péché, c'est ce qui obscurcit l'âme."
"There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them."
"On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage."
"C'est avec de beaux sentiments qu'on fait de la mauvaise littérature."
"Croyez ceux qui cherchent la vérité, doutez de ceux qui la trouvent; doutez de tout, mais ne doutez pas de vous-même."
"Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n'écoute, il faut toujours recommencer."
"Savoir se libérer n'est rien; l'ardu, c'est savoir être libre."
"The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?"