Andre Gide Quotes

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.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.

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.

Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

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

Whoever starts out toward the unknown must consent to venture alone.

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.

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.

Too chaste a youth leads to a dissolute old age.

Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself- and thus make yourself indispensable.

Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.

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.

What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.

It is now, and in this world, that we must live.

The greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers the most from its own limitations.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death

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.