Quotes By Andre Gide

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

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.

It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

To what a degree the same past can leave different marks - and especially admit of different interpretations.

Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

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

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.

Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.

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

Not everyone can be an orphan.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself-and thus make yourself indispensable.

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

I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs life under a sting even better than under a caress.

Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.

There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.