Andre Gide Quotes

Andre Gide Quote: Be faithful to that which exists in yourself.
1 | 2

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

Andre Gide (The Fruits of the Earth, 1897)

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

Andre Gide (If It Die, 1926)

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

Andre Gide (La Symphonie Pastorale, 1919)

I will not say I like danger, but I like life to be hazardous, and I want to demand at every moment the whole of my courage, my happiness, my health…

Andre Gide (The Immoralist, 1902)

Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

Andre Gide (The Fruits of the Earth, 1897)

To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.

Andre Gide

Man is more interesting than men... Each one is more precious than all.

Andre Gide (Journal Entry, 1901)

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

Andre Gide (Journal Entry)

It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.

Andre Gide

The color of truth is gray.

Andre Gide


Andre Gide Quote: Man cannot discover new oceans unless he...

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

Andre Gide (The Counterfeiters, 1925)

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.
Variant: The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

Andre Gide

You have to let other people be right was his answer to their insults. It consoles them for not being anything else.

Andre Gide (The Immoralist, 1902)

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

Andre Gide (The Fruits of the Earth, 1897)

No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

Andre Gide

Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.

Andre Gide (Journal Entry, 1906)

“You are burning what you used to adore,” said he. “Very good. It is a little late in the day, but never mind, the fire is all the fiercer.”

Andre Gide (The Immoralist, 1902)

What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.

Andre Gide (The Immoralist, 1902)

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

Andre Gide

I believe that happiness wears out in the effort made to recapture it; that nothing is more fatal to happiness than the remembrance of happiness.

Andre Gide

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

Andre Gide (Portraits and Aphorisms, 1903)

Knowing how to free oneself is nothing; it's being free that is hard.
Variant: To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.

Andre Gide (The Immoralist, 1902)



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

Andre Gide

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.

Andre Gide (Journal Entry, 1940)

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.

Andre Gide (The Counterfeiters, 1925)

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

Andre Gide (Journal Entry, 1927)

No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.

Andre Gide (Journal Entry, 1913)

I believe...that profit is not always what motivates man; that there are disinterested actions....By disinterested I mean: gratuitous. And that evil acts, what people call evil, can be as gratuitous as good acts.

Andre Gide (The Vatican Cellars, 1914)

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

Andre Gide (Journal Entry)

We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us

Andre Gide

1 | 2

Andre Gide Biography

Born: November 22, 1869
Died: February 19, 1951

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French novelist and essayist. He is best known for his works of fiction. He was also the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947.

Notable Works

The Fruits of the Earth (1897)
The Immoralist (1902)
Le retour de l'enfant prodigue (1907)
Strait is the Gate (1909)
La Symphonie Pastorale (1919)
Corydon (1920)
The Counterfeiters (1925)
If It Die (1926)
Signature