Andre Gide Quotes - Page 2

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

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.

Throw away my book: you must understand that it represents only one of a thousand attitudes. You must find your own. If someone else could have done something as well as you, don’t do it. If someone else could have said something as well as you, don’t say it—or written something as well as you, don’t write it. Grow fond only of that which you can find nowhere but in yourself, and create out of yourself, impatiently or patiently, ah! that most irreplaceable of beings.

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.

We should enjoy this summer, flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one we’ll see.

The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.

The wise man is astonished by anything.

Each of us really understands in others only those feelings he is capable of producing himself.

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

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

By the time a philospher answers a question weve usually forgotten what was asked.

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.

A man thinks he owns things, and it is he who is owned

Only fools don't contradict themselves

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.

A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly

I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.

Solitude is bearable only with God.

I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices.

Money cannot buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable. Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

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

Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.

Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it.

What seems different in yourself; that's the rare thing you possess. The one thing that gives each of us his worth, and that's just what we try to suppress. And we claim to love life.

We live counterfeit lives in order to resemble the idea we first had of ourselves.