André Gide Quotes

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

“Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself – and thus make yourself indispensable.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“Obtain from yourself all that makes complaining useless. No longer implore from others what you yourself can obtain.”

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

“Sin is whatever obscures the soul.
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“The color of truth is grey.”

“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.”

“Whoever starts out toward the unknown must consent to venture alone.”

“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”