André Gide

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

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

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

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

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

The color of truth is grey.

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

Those who have eyes…do not know their happiness.

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

But I think there comes a point in love, a unique moment which later on the soul seeks in vain to surpass, and that the effort to revive such happiness depletes it; that nothing thwarts happiness so much as the memory of happiness.

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

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.

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

He who wants a rose must respect her thorn.

No encounter occured that day, and I was glad of it; I took out of my pocket a little Homer I had not opened since leaving Marseilles, reread three lines of the Odyssey, learned them by heart; then, finding sufficient sustenance in their rhythm and reveling in them at leisure, I closed the book and remained, trembling, more alive than I had thought possible, my mind numb with happiness.

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.

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

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.

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

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

To tell the truth, my dear count, I must own that of all nauseating human emanations, literature is one of those which disgust me most. I can see nothing in it but compromise and flattery. And I go so far as to doubt whether it can be anything else.

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

Nothing thwarts happiness so much as the memory of happiness.

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

We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us,The secret seemed to me much more mysterious than that; it was the secret, I thought, of one who had known death; for I moved a stranger among ordinary people, like a man who has risen from the grave, and at first I merely felt rather painfully out of my element; but soon I became aware of a very different feeling. Was it pride now? Perhaps; but at any rate there was no trace of vanity mixed with it. It was rather, for the first time, the consciousness of my own worth. What separated me - distinguished me - from other people was crucial; what no one said, what no one could say but myself, that was my task to say.

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

I hoped at first to find a rather more direct comprehension of life in one or two novelists and poets; but if they really had such a comprehension, it must be confessed they did not show it; most of them, I thought, did not really live - contented themselves with appearing to live, and were on the verge of considering life merely as a vexatious hindrance to writing.

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

When I was younger, I used to make resolutions, which I imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not going old.

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

Because it was natural, could he not see that it was marvelous? Poor creature!,I say, "it seemed to me," for from the depths of my past childhood, there now awoke in me the glimmerings of a thousand lost sensations. The fact that I was once more aware of my senses enabled me to give them a half fearful recognition. Yes; my reawakened senses now remembered a whole ancient history of their own— recomposed for themselves a vanished past. They were alive! Alive! They had never ceased to live; they discovered that even during those early studious years they had been living their own latent, cunning life.

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

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

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

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

One can always find hands for a work of destruction.

Will it be here that we shall find a place which will not elude us, or which if it remains does not exert on us a culpable attraction? Or must we, leaning over the deck and watching the shores glide by, move forever onward?,I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.

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.

One completely overcomes only what one assimilates.

The scholar seeks the artist finds.

A work of art is an exaggeration.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

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

Long only for what you have.

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

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

One should want only one thing and want it constantly. Then one is sure of getting it. But I desire everything and consequently get nothing.

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.

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

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

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.

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

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

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

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

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

Sadness is a state of sin.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

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

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

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

The world will be saved by one or two people.

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

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.

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

Sadness is a state of sin.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

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

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

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

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

The color of truth is gray.

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.

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

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

Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

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

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

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. .