Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.
Andre GideRead
The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A hypocrite is someone who is unaware of their own deceit and believes their lies to be true.
In this quote, Andre Gide highlights the complexity of hypocrisy, suggesting that the true hypocrite is not merely someone who deceives others, but someone who has lost the ability to recognize their own deception. This form of self-deception is more insidious, as it illustrates a profound disconnect between one's beliefs and actions, ultimately questioning the integrity of a person's self-awareness.
Themes
HypocrisyDeceptionSelf-AwarenessSincerityTruth
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on ethics, one might quote this to illustrate the dangers of self-deception.
More from Andre Gide
All quotes βDo 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.
Andre GideRead
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.
Andre GideRead
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.
Andre GideRead
It is the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing.
Andre GideRead
It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.
Andre GideRead
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To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
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None but those who have learned the art of subjecting their senses as well as reason to hypothetical systems can be persuaded by the most specious rhetorician that the lots of life are equal; yet it cannot be denied that every one has his peculiar pleasures and vexations, that external accidents operate variously upon different minds, and that no man can exactly judge from his own sensations what another would feel in the same circumstances.
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I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least.
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