Andre Gide quotes

Andre Gide was a renowned French author, philosopher, and Nobel laureate. With his groundbreaking works, he has left an indelible mark on the literary world. Gide's existentialist writings explored themes of morality, freedom, and the complexities of human relationships. His masterpiece, "The Immoralist," depicted a protagonist challenging societal norms. Gide's boldness in addressing taboo subjects was met with both acclaim and controversy. As a key figure in the modernist movement, his influence on literature was profound. This SEO-friendly bio highlights Andre Gide's impactful literary contributions.

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

The color of truth is grey.

- Andre Gide

Obtain from yourself all that makes complaining useless. No longer implore from others what you yourself can obtain.

- Andre Gide

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.

- Andre Gide

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

- Andre Gide

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. It’s their way of falling.

- Andre Gide

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.

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.

- Andre Gide

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

- Andre Gide

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.

- Andre Gide

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.

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress.

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.

- Andre Gide

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

- Andre Gide

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

- Andre Gide

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

- Andre Gide

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 Gide

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.

- Andre Gide