André Gide Quotes

Que ton désir soit de l'amour, et que ta possession soit amoureuse.

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

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no-one was listening, everything must be said again.

When I was younger, I used to make resolutions which imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not growing old.

Everything which formerly distressed me is now a delicious pleasure.

Generally among intelligent people are found nothing but paralytics and among men of action nothing but fools.

My eyes filled with tears and I wept long and hard, unable, and unwilling, to stop.

Bărbatul nu-i decât un copil care a îmbătrânit.

Terre en vacance d'oeuvres d'art. Je méprise ceux qui ne savent reconnaître la beauté que transcrite déjà et toute interprétée. Le peuple arabe a ceci d'admirable que, son art, il le vit, il le chante et le dissipe au jour le jour; il ne le fixe point et ne l'embaume en aucune oeuvre. C'est la cause et l'effet de l'absence de grands artistes. J'ai toujours cru les grands artistes ceux qui osent donner droit de beauté à des choses si naturelles qu'elles font dire après à qui les voit : 'Comment n'avais-je pas compris jusqu'alors que cela était aussi beau?...

O my dearest and most lovable thought, why should I try further to legitimize your birth?

One can always find hands for a work of destruction.

Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way through exactly as one expects them to... This consistency of theirs, which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing which makes us recognise that they are artificially composed.

Le style des Faux-Monnayeurs ne doit présenter aucun intérêt de surface, aucune saillie. Tout doit être dit de la manière la plus plate, celle qui fera dire à certains jongleurs : que trouvez-vous à admirer là-dedans ?

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

Familles, je vous hais! foyers clos; portes refermées; possessions jalouses du bonheur.