Top 200 André Gide Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “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

102. “Our deeds attach themselves to us like the flame to phosphorus. They constitute our brilliance, to be sure, but only in so far as they consume us.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

104. “True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one’s own the suffering and joys of others.”

— André Gide

105. “I can’t expect others to share my virtues. It’s good enough for me if they share my vices.”

— André Gide

106. “Nothing is more fatal to happiness than the remembrance of happiness.”

— André Gide

107. “One is always wrong to open a conversation with the devil, for, however he goes about it, he always insists upon having the last word.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

110. “Are you then unable to recognize unless it has the same sound as yours?”

— André Gide

111. “How do you know that the fruit is ripe? Simply because it leaves the branch.”

— André Gide

112. “To love the truth is to refuse to let oneself be saddened by it.”

— André Gide

113. “Too chaste a youth leads to a dissolute old age.”

— André Gide

114. “Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves!”

— André Gide

115. “Every perfect action is accompanied by pleasure. By that you can tell what you ought to do.”

— André Gide

116. “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.”

— André Gide

117. “In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.”

— André Gide

118. “If only we could lean over the soul we love and see as in a mirror the image we cast!”

— André Gide

119. “There is no work of art that is without short cuts.”

— André Gide

120. “To win ones joy through struggle is better than to yield to melancholy.”

— André Gide

121. “Other people’s appetites easily appear excessive when one doesn’t share them.”

— André Gide

122. “Understanding is the beginning of approving.”

— André Gide

123. “Art that submits to orthodoxy, to even the soundest doctrines, but lacks imagination and deep self-expression is lost leaving only the craftsmanship.”

— André Gide

124. “Only fools don’t contradict themselves.”

— André Gide

125. “The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.”

— André Gide

126. “Wisdom comes not from reason but from love.”

— André Gide

127. “Through fear of resembling one another, through horror of having to submit, through uncertainty as well, through skepticism and complexity, there is a multitude of individual little beliefs for the triumph of strange little individuals.”

— André Gide

128. “The nationalist has a broad hatred and a narrow love.”

— André Gide

129. “Laws and rules of conduct are for the state of childhood; education is an emancipation.”

— André Gide

130. “The scholar seeks truth, the artist finds.”

— André Gide

131. “What thwarts us and demands of us the greatest effort is also what can teach us most.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

133. “The most beaten paths are certainly the surest, but do not hope to start much game on them.”

— André Gide

134. “Long only for what you have.”

— André Gide

135. “An experience teaches only the good observer; but far from seeking a lesson in it, everyone looks for an argument in experience, and everyone interprets the conclusion in his own way.”

— André Gide

136. “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.”

— André Gide

137. “When you have nothing to say, or to hide, there is no need to be prudent.”

— André Gide

138. “Enduring fame is promised only to those writers who can offer to successive generations a substance constantly renewed; for every generation arrives upon the scene with its own particular hunger.”

— André Gide

139. “Never have I been able to settle in life. Always seated askew, as if on the arm of a chair; ready to get up, to leave.”

— André Gide

140. “I have no use for knowledge that has not been preceded by a sensation.”

— André Gide

141. “A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.”

— André Gide

142. “How much more sensuality invites to art than does sentimentality.”

— André Gide

143. “Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.”

— André Gide

144. “Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

146. “Too chaste an adolescence makes for a dissolute old age. It is doubtless easier to give up something one has known than something one imagines.”

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

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

— André Gide

149. “From the satisfaction of desire there may arise, accompanying joy and as it were sheltering behind it, something not unlike despair.”

— André Gide

150. “The world will be saved by one or two people.”

— André Gide