André Gide Quotes

The abominable effort to take one's sins with one to paradise.

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

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

Savoir se libérer n'est rien; l'ardu, c'est savoir être libre.

Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n'écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.

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

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

Croyez ceux qui cherchent la vérité, doutez de ceux qui la trouvent; doutez de tout, mais ne doutez pas de vous-même.

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

C'est avec de beaux sentiments qu'on fait de la mauvaise littérature.

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.

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.

On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage.

There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.

Le péché, c'est ce qui obscurcit l'âme.