André Gide was a French author and Nobel Laureate in Literature. His work dealt with many controversial topics, such as morality, religion, and individual freedom. He is quoted as saying: “Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.” This quote speaks to the importance of being open-minded and constantly questioning everything to find the truth. It is a message that is still relevant today.
Motivational André Gide Quotes
- “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” — André Gide.
- “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he dares to lose sight of the shore.” — André Gide.
- “The colour of truth is gray.” — André Gide.
- “Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” — André Gide
- “It is one of life’s laws that as soon as one door closes another opens. But the tragedy is we look at the closed door and disregard the open one.” — André Gide.
- “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.” — André Gide.
- “Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” — André Gide.
- “He who wants a rose must respect her thorn.” — André Gide
- “The greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers the most from its own limitations.” — André Gide
- “Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.” — André Gide
- “To discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” — André Gide
- “Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death.” — André Gide
- “It is now, and in this world, that we must live.” — André Gide
- “The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.” — André Gide
- “A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.” — André Gide
- “When everything belongs to everyone, nobody will take care of anything.” — André Gide
- “Whoever starts out toward the unknown must consent to venture alone.” — André Gide
- “It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves – in finding themselves.” — André Gide
- “Not everyone can be an orphan.” — André Gide
- “The want of logic annoys. Too many logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.” — André Gide
- “There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.” — André Gide
- “Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself- and thus make yourself indispensable.” — André Gide
- “I advise the young to tell themselves constantly that most often it is up to them alone.” — André Gide
- “Each of us really understands in others only those feelings he is capable of producing himself.” — André Gide
- “Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.” — André Gide
- “Please do not understand me too quickly.” — André Gide
- “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” – André Gide.
This quote by André Gide resonates with me powerfully. As someone who has always been a bit of an outsider, I know firsthand how it feels to be judged and misunderstood. However, I have also realised that it is far better to be authentic and genuine to yourself, even if it means being unpopular or misunderstood. Ultimately, those who love and accept you for who you are are far more important than those who don’t.
- “Know thyself. A maxim was as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.” — André Gide
- “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.” — André Gide
- “Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.” — André Gide
- “I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun-warmed, flower bordered path.” — André Gide.
- “The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, “seeing that his work was good.”” — André Gide
- “Great authors are admirable in this respect: they make for disagreement in every generation. Through them we become aware of our differences.” — André Gide.
- “The wise man is he who constantly wonders afresh.” — André Gide
- “Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.” — André Gide
- “True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.” — André Gide
- “I intend to bring you strength, joy, courage, perspicacity, defiance.” — André Gide
- “Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.” — André Gide
- “Solitude is bearable only with God.” — André Gide
- “Often the best in us springs from the worst in us.” — André Gide
- “The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.” — André Gide
- “To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.” — André Gide
- “The pettiness of a mind can be measured by the pettiness of its adoration or its blasphemy.” — André Gide
- “It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.” — André Gide
- “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.” — André Gide
- “Money cannot buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable. Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.” — André Gide
- “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.” — André Gide
- “There is a law in life: When one door closes to us another one opens.” — André Gide
- “A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.” — André Gide
- “The most subtle art, the strongest and deepest art – supreme art – is the one that does not at first allow itself to be recognized.” — André Gide
- “The true return to nature is the definitive return to the elements-death.” — André Gide
- “Each thought becomes an anxiety in my brain. I am becoming the ugliest of all things: a busy man.” — André Gide
- “It is better to fail at your own life than to succeed at someone else’s.” — André Gide
- “Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.” — André Gide
- “In hell, there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime.” — André Gide
- “Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.” — André Gide.
- “It is with fine sentiments that bad literature is made. Descend to the bottom of the well if you wish to see the stars.” — André Gide
- “It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labours of peace.” — André Gide.
- “The work of art is the exaggeration of an idea.” — André Gide
- “Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.” — André Gide
- “The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.” — André Gide
- “Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.” — André Gide
- “I do not love men: I love what devours them.” — André Gide
- “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.” — André Gide
- “In other people’s company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring…” — André Gide
- “A man thinks he owns things, and it is he who is owned.” — André Gide
- “Do not scorn little victories.” — André Gide
- “Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.” — André Gide.
- “It is often so: the harder it is to hear, the more a truth is worth saying.” — André Gide.
- “Christianity, above all, consoles; but there are naturally happy souls who do not need consolation. Consequently, Christianity begins by making such souls unhappy, for otherwise, it would have no power over them.” — André Gide.
- “The bad novelist constructs his characters; he directs them and makes them speak. The true novelist listens to them and watches them act; he hears their voices even before he knows them.” — André Gide.
- “Man is extraordinarily clever in preventing himself from being happy; it would seem that the less able he is to endure misfortune the more apt he is to attach himself to it.” — André Gide.
- “I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.” — André Gide.
- “Man: The most complex of beings, and thus the most dependent of beings. You depend on all that made you up.” — André Gide.
- “It is essential to persuade the soldier that those he is being urged to massacre are bandits who do not deserve to live; before killing other good, decent fellows like himself, his gun would fall from his hands.” — André Gide.
- “Most often it happens that one attributes to others only the feelings of which one is capable oneself.” — André Gide.
- “What eludes logic is the most precious element in us, and one can draw nothing from a syllogism that the mind has not put there in advance.” — André Gide.
- “Faith can move mountains; true: mountains of stupidity.” — André Gide
- “The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free is the task.” — André Gide
- “Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves! And without too many regrets, if possible! Those from which the sap has withdrawn. But, good Lord, what beautiful colors!” — André Gide
- “But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.” — André Gide
- “So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.” — André Gide
- “Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessors of happiness.” — André Gide
- “When intelligent people pride themselves on not understanding, it is quite natural they should succeed better than fools.” — André Gide
- “Nothing excellent can be done without leisure.” — André Gide
- “The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward the bars.” — André Gide
- “There are admirable potentialities in every human being.” — André Gide
- “Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.” — André Gide
- “The wise man is astonished by anything.” — André Gide
- “Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.” — André Gide
- “Profound optimism is always on the side of the tortured.” — André Gide
- “Sin is whatever obscures the soul.” — André Gide
- “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.” — André Gide
- “You have to let other people be right’ was his answer to their insults. ‘It consoles them for not being anything else.” — André Gide
- “I can’t expect others to share my virtues. It’s good enough for me if they share my vices.” — André Gide
- “The individual never asserts himself more than when he forgets himself.” — André Gide
- “True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one’s own the suffering and joys of others.” — André Gide
- “Our deeds attach themselves to us like the flame to phosphorus. They constitute our brilliance, to be sure, but only in so far as they consume us.” — André Gide
- “Are you then unable to recognize unless it has the same sound as yours?” — André Gide
- “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.” — André Gide
- “The miser puts his gold pieces into a coffer; but as soon as the coffer is closed, it is as if it were empty.” — André Gide
- “Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up.” – André Gide — André Gide
- “God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.” — André Gide
- “It is not becoming to lay to virtue the weariness of old age.” — André Gide
- “Sadness is a state of sin.” — André Gide
- “Chastity more rarely follows fear, or a resolution, or a vow, than it is the mere effect of lack of appetite and, sometimes even, of distaste.” — André Gide
- “To what a degree the same past can leave different marks – and especially admit of different interpretations.” — André Gide
- “They establish distinctions and reserves which I cannot apply to myself, for I exist only as a whole; my only claim is to be natural, and the pleasure I feel in an action, I take as a sign that I ought to do it.” — André Gide
- “What seems different in yourself; that’s the rare thing you possess. The one thing that gives each of us his worth, and that’s just what we try to suppress. And we claim to love life.” — André Gide
- “Obtain from yourself all that makes complaining useless. No longer implore from others what you can obtain.” — André Gide.
- “The most decisive actions of life are most often unconsidered actions.” — André Gide
- “Let every emotion be capable becoming an intoxication to you. If what you eat fails to make you drunk, it is because you are not hungry enough.” — André Gide
- “There is no feeling so simple that it is not immediately complicated and distorted by introspection.” — André Gide
- “I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan’t be able to prevent.” — André Gide
- “From the satisfaction of desire there may arise, accompanying joy and as it were sheltering behind it, something not unlike despair.” — André Gide
- “The individual man tries to escape the race. And as soon as he ceases to represent the race, he represents man.” — André Gide
- “Of some forty families I have been able to observe, I know hardly four in which the parents do not act in such a way that nothing would be more desirable for the child than to escape their influence.” — André Gide
- “The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?” — André Gide
- “What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.” — André Gide
- “We call “happiness” a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.” — André Gide
- “It is the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing…” — André Gide
- “Man’s responsibility increases as that of the gods decreases.” — André Gide
- “Understand that the only possession of any value is life.” — André Gide
- “It would be wisest not to worry too much about the sterile periods. They ventilate the subject and instill into it the reality of daily life.” — André Gide
- “Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.” — André Gide
- “True eloquence forgoes eloquence.” — André Gide
- “If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn’t hesitate to do so.” — André Gide
- “He who makes great demands upon himself is naturally inclined to make great demands on others.” — André Gide
- “What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.” — André Gide
- “Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.” — André Gide
- “One completely overcomes only what one assimilates.” — André Gide
- “I find just as much profit in cultivating my hates as my loves.” — André Gide
- “The important thing is being capable of emotions, but to experience only one’s own would be a sorry limitation.” — André Gide
- “If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one’s youth, one’s greatest indignation would be for what one has become.” — André Gide
- “What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.” — André Gide
- “Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.” — André Gide
- “It is good to follow one’s own bent, so long as it leads upward.” — André Gide
- “The itch is a mean, unconfessable, ridiculous malady; one can pity someone who is suffering ; someone who wants to scratch himself makes one laugh.” — André Gide
- “It is only through restraint that man can manage not to suppress himself.” — André Gide
- “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.” — André Gide
- “An artist cannot get along without a public; and when the public is absent, what does he do? He invents it, and turning his back on his age, he looks toward the future for what the present denies.” — André Gide
- “The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.” — André Gide
- “Atheism. There is not a single exalting and emancipating influence that does not in turn become inhibitory.” — André Gide
- “Do not think your truth can be found by anyone else.” — André Gide
- “To be sure, theory is useful. But without warmth of heart and without love it bruises the very ones it claims to save.” — André Gide
- “We no longer admit any other truth than that which is expedient; for there is no worse error than the truth that may weaken the arm that is fighting.” — André Gide
- “An opinion, though it is original, does not necessarily differ from the accepted opinion; the important thing is that it does not try to conform to it.” — André Gide
- “I have never produced anything good except by a long succession of slight efforts.” — André Gide
- “Generally among intelligent people are found nothing but paralytics and among men of action nothing but fools.” — André Gide
- “The only really Christian art is that which, like St. Francis, does not fear being wedded to poverty. This rises far above art-as-ornament.” — André Gide
- “The reasons that drive me to write are many and the most important are the most secret, I think. Perhaps most of all this: to put something out of death’s reach.” — André Gide
André Gide was a French writer and thinker who significantly influenced 20th-century literature and thought. His best-known works include The Immoralist, a novel about a man who rejects conventional morality, and The Counterfeiters, an autobiographical work in which he recounts his experience of Going against the grain” which has been a defining theme of Gide’s work.
Gide was born in Paris in 1869 into a wealthy Protestant family. He was educated at prestigious schools, including the École Nouvelle de Neuilly and the Lycée Henri IV. He began writing while still a student, publishing his first book, roman à clef Les Caves du Vatican, in 1897.
In 1908, Gide travelled to Africa with his friend Georges Duhamel. This trip would prove influential for both men: Duhamel would go on to write several books about Africa. At the same time, Gide’s experiences there led him to question many of his beliefs. After returning to France, Gide became involved with various avant-garde artists and writers, including Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley.
He also grew close to many of the leading lights of the fledgling French Communist Party, though he never joined the party himself.
The 1920s were perhaps the most productive period of Gide’s life: as well as published widely acclaimed works such as The Journals of André Walter (1923).
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