Quotes from Andre Gide

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.

One completely overcomes only what one assimilates.

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.

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

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

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

One should want only one thing and want it constantly. Then one is sure of getting it. But I desire everything, and consequently get nothing.

She already loved me too much to see me as I was.

Our judgements about things vary according to the time left us to live -that we think is left us to live.

We live counterfeit lives in order to resemble the idea we first had of ourselves.

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

It is now, and in this world, that we must live.

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.

In order to be utterly happy, the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.

Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.

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

The wise man is astonished by anything.

The greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers the most from its own limitations.

True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.

In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime.

He who wants a rose must respect her thorn.

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

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

The wise man is he who constantly wonders afresh.