Top 200 André Gide Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 2 of 5

51. “It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.”

— André Gide

52. “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.”

— André Gide

53. “There is a law in life: When one door closes to us another one opens.”

— André Gide

54. “A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

56. “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

57. “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

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

63. “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

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

67. “Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

69. “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

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

— André Gide

71. “We call “happiness” a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

75. “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

76. “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

77. “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

78. “Do not scorn little victories.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

80. “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

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

— André Gide

82. “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

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

Featured in: New Year Quotes

90. “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

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

96. “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

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

— André Gide

98. “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

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide