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
It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
Interpretation
The quote humorously suggests that certain experiences are expected in life, especially for a Frenchman.
In this quote, André Gide uses irony to comment on the traditional expectations and stereotypes associated with French culture, implying that acquiring syphilis and receiving the prestigious Cross of the Legion of Honor are almost rites of passage for a Frenchman reaching middle age. The exaggerated nature of the statement reflects on how societal norms can shape personal experiences, often in absurd or unexpected ways.
In practice
In a conversation about cultural stereotypes, this quote could serve as a humorous illustration of societal expectations.
Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.
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.
Listen, someone's screaming in agony- fortunately I speak it fluently
When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can't bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.
That evening I rode downtown on an unaccountably empty bus, sitting in the last row. At the front I saw a thin cloud of smoke rising around the driver’s head. ‘Hey, bus driver,’ I said. ‘Can I smoke?’ ‘May I,’ said the bus driver. ‘I love you,’ I said.
Black moleskin gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a fool wearing only one glove.
Sometimes if something is entertaining and amusing, people tend to think that it doesn't have the depth of something that's dramatic. I don't think that's true.
I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.
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