Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.

In this late autobiographical meditation, Gide says that an urgent need for sympathy has driven him to write. He wants a young reader to feel on equal terms with him, not to receive a doctrine or advice. After these sentences he praises the words of Christ but says that he himself does not believe, and calls the reader his brother.

Trust the honesty of inquiry more than claims to final possession of truth, without allowing skepticism to destroy your confidence in yourself.

Often shortened to the first two clauses and treated as an absolute rule of suspicion. The full sentence adds a limit to doubt, and the surrounding passage rejects the role of doctrinal authority rather than offering a new doctrine.

Doubt, Truth, Reason, Wisdom, Education

• Earn with your mind, not your time. Naval Ravikant
• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (not found) Mahatma Gandhi
• Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. Epicurus
• If it is not right, do not do it: if it is not true, do not say it. Marcus Aurelius
• Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Martin Luther King Jr.

• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/André_Gide
• fondation-catherine-gide.org/actualites/archives-contemporaines

André Gide, André Gide, Ainsi soit-il ou Les Jeux sont faits (first published Paris: Gallimard, 1952), Bibliothèque numérique romande e-book, May 2022, BNR e-book page 172/222 (not the pagination of the 1952 printed edition). Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/believe-those-who-seek-the-truth/ (26 October 2026).

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