"We live counterfeit lives in order to resemble the idea we first had of ourselves."
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Quote collection
Andre Gide quotes (page 5 of 13)
252 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace."
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"There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them."
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"The very act of sacrifice magnifies the one who sacrifices himself to the point where his sacrifice is much more costly to humanity than would have been the loss of those for whom he is sacrificing himself. But in his abnegation lies the secret of his grandeur."
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"To understand is nothing, but to be understood-that is the problem and the source of anguish. The soul throbs and would have the other know-but can not and feels isolated. Then come gestures, words, awkward explanations and material symbols for imponderable outbursts of feeling-and the soul despairs."
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"When you have nothing to say, or to hide, there is no need to be prudent."
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"A work of art is an exaggeration."
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"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."
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"Drunkenness is never anything but a substitute for happiness."
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"Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up."
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"Most often it happens that one attributes to others only the feelings of which one is capable oneself."
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"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."
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"Never have I been able to settle in life. Always seated askew, as if on the arm of a chair; ready to get up, to leave."
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"Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves!"
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"God lies ahead. I convince myself and constantly repeat to myself that: He depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved."
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"Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding."
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"With each book you write you should lose the admirers you gained with the previous one."
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"We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us"
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"The wise man is astonished by anything."
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"Faith can move mountains; true: mountains of stupidity."
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