I intend to bring you strength, joy, courage, perspicacity, defiance. Andre Gide More Quotes by Andre Gide More Quotes From Andre Gide It is essential to persuade the soldier that those he is being urged to massacre are bandits who do not deserve to live; before killing other good, decent fellows like himself, his gun would fall from his hands. Andre Gide army gun fall There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them. Andre Gide doe life long Pay attention only to the form; emotion will come spontaneously to inhabit it. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant. The artist's business is to build the dwelling; as for the inhabitant, it is up to the reader to provide him. Andre Gide dwelling-place perfect attention Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up. Andre Gide woe age people 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 Andre Gide portraits risk running 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. Andre Gide reading motivational travel With each book you write you should lose the admirers you gained with the previous one. Andre Gide admirer writing book True eloquence forgoes eloquence. Andre Gide eloquence miscellaneous I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices. Andre Gide good-enough virtue vices Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination. Andre Gide fresh-start may life Actions whose motives he cannot understand that is, actions not prompted by the hope of profit. Andre Gide profit motive action God lies ahead. I convince myself and constantly repeat to myself that: He depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved. Andre Gide convince god lying 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. Andre Gide sacrifice loss lying The public always prefers to be reassured. There are those whose job this is. There are only too many. Andre Gide jobs people No encounter occured that day, and I was glad of it; I took out of my pocket a little Homer I had not opened since leaving Marseilles, reread three lines of the Odyssey, learned them by heart; then, finding sufficient sustenance in their rhythm and reveling in them at leisure, I closed the book and remained, trembling, more alive than I had thought possible, my mind numb with happiness. Andre Gide leaving heart book From the satisfaction of desire there may arise, accompanying joy and as it were sheltering behind it, something not unlike despair. Andre Gide despair desire joy How do you know that the fruit is ripe? Simply because it leaves the branch. Andre Gide fruit maturity branches Too chaste an adolescence makes for a dissolute old age. It is doubtless easier to give up something one has known than something one imagines. Andre Gide imagine giving-up age When you have nothing to say, or to hide, there is no need to be prudent. Andre Gide prudence prudent needs I would like the events never to be told directly by the author, but rather to be introduced (and several times, from various angles) by those among the characters on whom they will have had any effect. I would like those events, in the account they will make of them, to appear slightly distorted; a kind of interest stems, for the reader, from the simple fact that he should need to restore. The story requires his collaboration in order to properly take shape. Andre Gide reading simple character