Andre Gide
Andre Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gidewas a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947 "for his comprehensive and artistically significant writings, in which human problems and conditions have been presented with a fearless love of truth and keen psychological insight". Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionAutobiographer
Date of Birth22 November 1869
CountryFrance
It would be wisest not to worry too much about the sterile periods. They ventilate the subject and instill into it the reality of daily life.
Those who have never been ill are incapable of real sympathy for a great many misfortunes
At times is it seems that I am living my life backward, and that at the approach of old age my real youth will begin. My soul was born covered with wrinkles. Wrinkles my ancestors and parents most assiduously put there and that I had the greatest trouble removing.
The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.
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.
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time
Families, I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessors of happiness
The belief that becomes truth for me - is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting my virtues into action
Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.
The miser puts his gold pieces into a coffer; but as soon as the coffer is closed, it is as if it were empty.
The most decisive actions of our life - I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future - are, more often than not, unconsidered.
You have to let other people be right' was his answer to their insults. 'It consoles them for not being anything else.
The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?
I do not love men: I love what devours them.