Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.
Interpretation
Life offers continuous opportunities for renewal and change, regardless of endings.
In this quote, Andre Gide emphasizes the cyclical nature of life where every ending can also represent a new beginning. He invites us to view lifeβs transitions not merely as conclusions, but as fresh opportunities that can lead to growth and new experiences, encouraging an optimistic perspective on change.
In practice
Use this quote in a graduation speech to inspire students about future opportunities.
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.
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.
Through fear of resembling one another, through horror of having to submit, through uncertainty as well, through skepticism and complexity, there is a multitude of individual little beliefs for the triumph of strange little individuals.
It is the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing.
It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.
I intend to bring you strength, joy, courage, perspicacity, defiance.
We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.
Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You've eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on...none of you are safe.
I never wanted to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people need me.
My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.
My hypothesis is that for people who are both trained and inclined to think in rigorously logical ways, it is particularly difficult to adapt to the Soviet system of doublethink.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.