Explore Quotes by Andre Gide

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.

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

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

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

The most decisive actions of life are most often unconsidered actions.

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

In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime.

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.

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

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.

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

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

'Therefore' is a word the poet must not know.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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