Top 200 André Gide Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.”

— André Gide

52. “The true return to nature is the definitive return to the elements-death.”

— André Gide

53. “The most subtle art, the strongest and deepest art – supreme art – is the one that does not at first allow itself to be recognized.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

55. “It is better to fail at your own life than to succeed at someone else’s.”

— André Gide

56. “Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.”

— André Gide

57. “Each thought becomes an anxiety in my brain. I am becoming the ugliest of all things: a busy man.”

— André Gide

58. “The work of art is the exaggeration of an idea.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

60. “I do not love men: I love what devours them.”

— André Gide

61. “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.”

— André Gide

62. “The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.”

— André Gide

63. “Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.”

— André Gide

64. “Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

66. “In other people’s company I felt I was dull, gloomy, unwelcome, at once bored and boring...”

— André Gide

67. “Christianity, above all, consoles; but there are naturally happy souls who do not need consolation. Consequently Christianity begins by making such souls unhappy, for otherwise it would have no power over them.”

— André Gide

68. “A man thinks he owns things, and it is he who is owned.”

— André Gide

69. “It is often so: the harder it is to hear, the more a truth is worth saying.”

— André Gide

70. “Man: The most complex of beings, and thus the most dependent of beings. On all that made you up, you depend.”

— André Gide

71. “The bad novelist constructs his characters; he directs them and makes them speak. The true novelist listens to them and watches them act; he hears their voices even before he knows them.”

— André Gide

72. “Do not scorn little victories.”

— André Gide

73. “Man is extraordinarily clever in preventing himself from being happy; it would seem that the less able he is to endure misfortune the more apt he is to attach himself to it.”

— André Gide

74. “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.”

— André Gide

75. “I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.”

— André Gide

76. “Most often it happens that one attributes to others only the feelings of which one is capable oneself.”

— André Gide

77. “Faith can move mountains; true: mountains of stupidity.”

— André Gide

78. “The individual man tries to escape the race. And as soon as he ceases to represent the race, he represents man.”

— André Gide

79. “When I cease to be indignant I will have begun my old age.”

— André Gide

80. “What eludes logic is the most precious element in us, and one can draw nothing from a syllogism that the mind has not put there in advance.”

— André Gide

81. “The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free is the task.”

— André Gide

82. “He who makes great demands upon himself is naturally inclined to make great demands on others.”

— André Gide

83. “So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.”

— André Gide

84. “Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessors of happiness.”

— André Gide

85. “But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.”

— André Gide

86. “When intelligent people pride themselves on not understanding, it is quite natural they should succeed better than fools.”

— André Gide

87. “Nothing excellent can be done without leisure.”

— André Gide

88. “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.”

— André Gide

89. “You have to let other people be right’ was his answer to their insults. ‘It consoles them for not being anything else.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

91. “There are admirable potentialities in every human being.”

— André Gide

92. “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.”

— André Gide

93. “The wise man is astonished by anything.”

— André Gide

94. “Profound optimism is always on the side of the tortured.”

— André Gide

95. “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.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

97. “Sin is whatever obscures the soul.”

— André Gide

98. “The miser puts his gold pieces into a coffer; but as soon as the coffer is closed, it is as if it were empty.”

— André Gide

99. “The individual never asserts himself more than when he forgets himself.”

— André Gide

100. “An unprejudiced mind is probably the rarest thing in the world; to nonprejudice I attach the greatest value.”

— André Gide