Quotes from Andre Gide

Mieux vaut être haï pour ce que l'on est, qu'aimé pour ce que l'on n'est pas.

And suddenly I was seized with a desire, a craving, something more furious and more imperious than I had ever felt before—to live! I want to live! I will live. I clenched my teeth, my hands, concentrated my whole being in this wild, grief-stricken endeavour towards existence.

One can always find hands for a work of destruction.

Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way through exactly as one expects them to... This consistency of theirs, which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing which makes us recognise that they are artificially composed.

Those [who] assiduously fabricate for themselves a self-conscious originality, and after having made a choice of certain practices, their principal preoccupation is never to depart from them, to remain for ever on their guard and allow themselves not a moment's relaxation.

Le style des Faux-Monnayeurs ne doit présenter aucun intérêt de surface, aucune saillie. Tout doit être dit de la manière la plus plate, celle qui fera dire à certains jongleurs : que trouvez-vous à admirer là-dedans ?

What a melancholy day! I said. Aren't you bored? Not particularly. I am reading.

I gazed at myself, no longer with shame, but with joy. I felt, if not exactly strong, then at least potentially so, harmonious, sensuous, almost beautiful.

Pour moi, être aimé n'est rien, c'est être préféré que je désire.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

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.

L'homme qui se dit heureux et qui pense, celui-là sera appelé vraiment fort.

Everything which formerly distressed me is now a delicious pleasure.

Disease had taken hold of Marceline, never again to leave her; it had marked her, stained her. Henceforth she was a thing that had been spoiled.

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

Solo las almas muy banales alcanzan fácilmente la expresión sincera de su personalidad. Pues una personalidad nueva solo se expresa sinceramente en una forma nueva. La frase que nos es personal ha de ser tan particularmente difícil de tensar como el arco de Ulises

Si le grain de blé qui est tombé en terre ne meurt, il reste seul ; mais, s'il meurt, il porte beaucoup de fruit. Celui qui aime sa vie la perdra, et celui qui hait sa vie dans ce monde la conservera pour la vie éternelle.

Rather than recount his life as he has lived it, he must live his life as he will recount it.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Exist pentru a-l ajuta, nu pentru a-l abate din drumul s?u.

Desigur, trebuie s? ai o anumit? experien?? a vieÅ£ii pentru a înÅ£elege c? nu poÅ£i n?d?jdui s? obÅ£ii lucrurile pe care le doreÅŸti decît riscîndu-le pe cele la care Å£ii mai mult.

I hoped at first to find a rather more direct comprehension of life in one or two novelists and poets; but if they really had such a comprehension, it must be confessed they did not show it; most of them, I thought, did not really live - contented themselves with appearing to live, and were on the verge of considering life merely as a vexatious hindrance to writing.

Être aveugle pour se croire heureux. Croire qu'on y voit clair pour ne pas chercher à y voir puisque : L'on ne peut se voir que malheureux.

Tout l'effort de l'esprit ne parvient pas à recréer cette émotion de la surprise qui ajoute au charme de l'objet une étrangeté ravissante. Le beauté du monde extérieur reste la même, mais la virginité du regard s'est perdue.