Andre Gide Quotes

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

To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.

Wisdom comes not from reason but from love.

Believe in your strength and your vision. Learn to repeat to yourself, ‘It all depends on me’.

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.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

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

We no longer admit any other truth than that which is expedient; for there is no worse error than the truth that may weaken the arm that is fighting.

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

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

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.

The anxiety we have for the figure we cut, for our personage, is constantly cropping out. We are showing off and are often more concerned with making a display than with living. Whoever feels observed observes himself.