Quotes by André Gide

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

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

I do not love men: I love what devours them.

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore

Yet Im sure theres something more to be read in a man. People dare not -- they dare not turn the page. The laws of mimicry -- I call them the laws of fear. People are afraid to find themselves alone, and dont find themselves at all. I hate this moral agoraphobia -- its the worst kind of cowardice. You cant create something without being alone. But whos trying to create here? What seems different in yourself: thats the one rare thing you possess, the one thing which gives each of us his worth; and thats just what we try to suppress. We imitate. And we claim to love life.

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

The color of truth is grey.

God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.

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

Those who have eyes…do not know their happiness.

But I think there comes a point in love, a unique moment which later on the soul seeks in vain to surpass, and that the effort to revive such happiness depletes it; that nothing thwarts happiness so much as the memory of happiness.

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.

Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.

He who wants a rose must respect her thorn.

No encounter occured that day, and I was glad of it; I took out of my pocket a little Homer I had not opened since leaving Marseilles, reread three lines of the Odyssey, learned them by heart; then, finding sufficient sustenance in their rhythm and reveling in them at leisure, I closed the book and remained, trembling, more alive than I had thought possible, my mind numb with happiness.

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.

Theres no better cure for the fear of taking after ones father, than not to know who he is.

This is my thesis: Do you know what is needful to turn an honest man into a rogue! A change of scene--a moments forgetfulness suffice.