“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
Andre Gide85 likes
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
“One should want only one thing and want it constantly. Then one is sure of getting it. But I desire everything, and consequently get nothing.”
“Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.”
“If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one's youth, one's greatest indignation would be for what one has become.”
“It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.”
“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
“To win one's joy through struggle is better than to yield to melancholy.”
“We live counterfeit lives in order to resemble the idea we first had of ourselves.”
“It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.”
“What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.”
“The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.”
“Long only for what you have.”
“It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.”
“Not everyone can be an orphan.”
“The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.”
“Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.”
“What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.”
“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.”
“The color of truth is grey.”
“Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.”
“The scholar seeks, the artist finds.”
“Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”
“No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.”
“Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue.”
“Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.”
“A work of art is an exaggeration.”
“Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.”
“A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.”
“Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.”
“It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.”
“Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.”
“Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.”
“The color of truth is gray.”
“Nothing is good for everyone, but only relatively to some people.”
“God depends on us. It is through us that God is achieved.”
“The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.”
“Art begins with resistance - at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.”
“It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.”
“What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.”
“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”
“The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.”
“One completely overcomes only what one assimilates.”
“Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.”
“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.”
“The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.”
“In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.”
“It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.”
“Most quarrels amplify a misunderstanding.”