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
Great minds tend toward banality. It is the noblest effort of individualism. But it implies a sort of modesty, which is so rare that it is scarcely found except in the greatest, or in beggars.
We no longer admit any other truth than that which is expedient; for there is no worse error than the truth that may weaken the arm that is fighting.
The individual never asserts himself more than when he forgets himself.
The greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers the most from its own limitations.
Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.
Nothing is good for everyone, but only relatively to some people.
Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.
Faith can move mountains; true: mountains of stupidity.
A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.
Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.
Man! The most complex of creatures, and for this reason the most dependant of creatures. On everything that has formed you, you may depend. Do not balk at this apparent slavery....a debtor to many, you pay for your advantages by the same number of dependencies. Understand that independence is a form of poverty; that many things claim you, that many also claim kinship with you.
Believe in your strength and your vision. Learn to repeat to yourself, 'It all depends on me'.
There is a law in life: When one door closes to us another one opens.
By the time a philospher answers a question weve usually forgotten what was asked.