385 Quotes by Andre Gide

It is with fine sentiments that bad literature is made. Descend to the bottom of the well if you wish to see the stars.

The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?

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

Clear and precise ideas are the most dangerous, for one does not dare to change them.

The individual person is more interesting than people in general; he and not they is the one whom God created in His image.

The finest virtues can become deformed with age. The precise mind becomes finicky; the thrifty man, miserly; the cautious man, timorous; the man of imagination, fanciful. Even perseverance ends up in a sort of stupidity. Just as, on the other hand, being too willing to understand too many opinions, too diverse ways of seeing, constancy is lost and the mind goes astray in a restless fickleness.

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

The individual man tries to escape the race. And as soon as he ceases to represent the race, he represents man.

The only really Christian art is that which, like St. Francis, does not fear being wedded to poverty. This rises far above art-as-ornament.