Quotes from Andre Gide

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

Only fools don't contradict themselves

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.

Dare to be yourself

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. It's their way of falling.

Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.

On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage. (One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.)

Let every emotion be capable of becoming an intoxication to you. If what you eat fails to make you drunk, it is because you are not hungry enough.

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

"Know thyself" — a maxim as pernicious as it is odious. A person observing himself would arrest his own development. Any caterpillar who tried to "know himself" would never become a butterfly.

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

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessions of happiness.

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

The most decisive actions of our life… are most often unconsidered actions.

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

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

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

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.

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

Know thyself! A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly.

True eloquence forgoes eloquence.