Journals, 1889-1949
André Gide
Top 10 Best Quotes
“The truth is that as soon as we are no longer obliged to earn our living, we no longer know what to do with our life and recklessly squander it.”
“The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — because they were too obvious.”
“Truth can be told to all; the idea, in proportion to the strength of each.”
“The only drama that really interests me and that I should always be willing to depict anew, is the debate of the individual with whatever keeps him from being authentic, with whatever is opposed to his integrity, to his integration. Most often the obstacle is within him. And all the rest is merely accidental.”
“Take upon oneself as much humanity as possible. There is the correct formula.”
“Nothing is consistent, nothing is fixed or certain, in my life. By turns I resemble and differ; there is no living creature so foreign to me that I cannot be sure of approaching. I do not yet know, at the age of 36, whether I am miserly or prodigal, temperate or greedy ... or rather, being suddenly carried from one to the other extreme, in this very balancing I feel that my fate is being carried out. Why should I attempt to form, by artificially imitating myself, the artificial unity of my life? Only in movement can I find my equilibrium.”
“I let the most antagonistic proposals of my nature gradually come to agreement without violence. Suppressing the dialogue in oneself really amounts to stopping the development of life. Everything leads to harmony. The fiercer and more persistant the discord had been, the broader reconciliations blossoms.”
“I am anxious to know what I shall be; I do not even know what I want to be, but I do know that I must choose. I should like to progress on safe and sure roads that lead only to the point where I have decided to go. But I don't know; I don't know what I ought to want. I am aware of a thousand possibilities in me, but I cannot resign myself to want to be only one of them. And every moment, at every word I write at each gesture I make, I am terrified at the thought that this is one more ineradicable feature of my physiognomy becoming fixed: a hesitant, impersonal physiognomy, an amorphous physiognomy, since I have not been capable of choosing and tracing its contours confidently.”
“I always see, almost simultaneously, the two sides of each idea, and the emotion is always polarized in me.”
“Every judgment bears within it the testimony of our weakness. In my case, the judgments I have to make sometimes about things are as irresolute as the emotions that those things arouse. This explains that boundless uncertainty which upsets my acts when they must be based on a judgment.”
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Book Keywords:
saying-the-right-thing, vocation, assuming, life, communication, assumptions
