André Gide
1869–1951
13 genuine quotes, each found in the text, and 1 wrongly credited to Gide.
French novelist, essayist and diarist, a founder of the Nouvelle Revue Française and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947. He defended homosexuality in Corydon and told of his own in his memoir Si le grain ne meurt, both published in his lifetime, and kept a journal for some sixty years. His novels are often told by characters the book puts on trial (Michel in The Immoralist), and English quote sites often credit his lines to the wrong book.
FrontispieceMade by an image model after Lady Ottoline Morrell’s photograph of André Gide (1920, public domain), in the manner of Art Nouveau (1890–1910). The likeness is the original’s; this picture is AI‑generated and not historical. The endpaper behind it is an AI‑generated pattern in the same manner.
Genuine Gide quotes
- It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
If It Die… (1926), Draft preface for Si le grain ne meurt (“Projet de préface”), first printed after the memoir in Œuvres complètes, vol. X (1936), pp. 453–454.
- Do not try to find the past again in the future.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Livre II, said by the lyrical narrator.
- Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.
André Gide, Ainsi soit-il ou Les Jeux sont faits (first published Paris: Gallimard, 1952), Bibliothèque numérique romande e-book, May 2022, Ainsi soit-il ou Les Jeux sont faits, passage containing « croyez ceux qui cherchent la vérité »; BNR e-book, page 172/222.
- Choosing seemed to me not so much selecting as rejecting what I did not select.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Livre IV, section I, said by Ménalque.
- What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well as you, do not write it.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Envoi (the closing address), Les Nourritures terrestres (1897).
- Everything has already been said; but as no one listens, one must always begin again.
André Gide, Le Traité du Narcisse (Théorie du symbole), opening paragraphs; French transcription on Wikisource, Le Traité du Narcisse (Théorie du symbole), opening discussion of the myth of Narcissus, immediately before the retelling.
- Families, I hate you! Homes shut tight; doors closed again; jealous possessions of happiness.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Livre IV, Les Nourritures terrestres (1897).
- If what you eat does not make you drunk, it is because you were not hungry enough.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Livre II, Les Nourritures terrestres (1897).
- Nathanaël—let the importance be in your gaze, not in the thing you look at.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Livre I, section I, said by the lyrical narrator.
- Melancholy is only fervour that has subsided.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Livre I, section I, said by the lyrical narrator.
- Nathanaël, now throw away my book. Free yourself from it.
Fruits of the Earth (1897), Envoi, opening, said by the lyrical narrator.
- To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.
The Immoralist (1902), Première partie, chapter I (Michel’s opening speech to his friends), L’Immoraliste (1902).
- Wisdom is not in reason, but in love.
André Gide, Les Nouvelles Nourritures (1935), Livre premier, I; French e-text headed Les Nouvelles Nourritures terrestres, Ebooks libres et gratuits, Les Nouvelles Nourritures, Livre premier, I, paragraph immediately before « Rencontres », said by the first-person lyrical narrator.
Quotes wrongly credited to Gide
- Gray is the color of truth.
Misattributed. No reliable Gide source is established. The saying is tentatively traced to Jacques de Biez, quoted by W. C. Brownell in 1889.
Paraphrased: Gide’s thought, in other words
- Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
Paraphrase. The idea is in The Counterfeiters (1925), Troisième partie, chapter XIV (Édouard talking to Bernard), Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925), p. 147 of the NRF edition read.
The works we hold
Quotes are looked up word for word in these texts. The number is how many genuine quotes here come from each.
| Work | Year | Genuine quotes |
|---|---|---|
| Fruits of the Earth Les Nourritures terrestres | 1897 | 8 |
| The Immoralist L’Immoraliste | 1902 | 1 |
| If It Die… Si le grain ne meurt | 1926 | 1 |