André Gide Quotes

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.

Que chaque attente, en toi, ne soit même pas un désir, mais simplement une disposition à l'accueil. Attends tout ce qui vient à toi, mais ne désire que ce qui vient à toi. Ne désire que ce que tu as.

People don't want to be like themselves. They all choose a model to imitate, or if they don't choose a model themselves, they accept one ready-made.

To tell the truth, my dear count, I must own that of all nauseating human emanations, literature is one of those which disgust me most. I can see nothing in it but compromise and flattery. And I go so far as to doubt whether it can be anything else.

Art begins with resistance — at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

...que toute émotion sache te devenir une ivresse. Si ce que tu manges ne te grise pas, c'est que tu n'avais pas assez faim.

Throw away my book: you must understand that it represents only one of a thousand attitudes. You must find your own. If someone else could have done something as well as you, don’t do it. If someone else could have said something as well as you, don’t say it — or written something as well as you, don’t write it. Grow fond only of that which you can find nowhere but in yourself, and create out of yourself, impatiently or patiently, ah! that most irreplaceable of beings.

بين أن يحب المرء وبين أن يظن أنه يحب، وحده الإله بمقدوره أن يميز بين الحالتين .

Seize from every moment it's unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.

Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself- and thus make yourself indispensable.

Because it was natural, could he not see that it was marvelous? Poor creature!

The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?

الطريق المستقيم لا يؤدي إلا إلى الهدف.

The deeper the soul plunges into religious religious devotion, the more it loses all sense of reality, all need, all desire, all love for reality.

What would be the description of happines? Nothing, except what prepares and then what destroys it, can be told.