Literary Birthday – 22 November – André Gide

André Gide was born 22 November 1869, and died 19 February 1951.

André Gide Quotes

1. The artist who is after success lets himself be influenced by the public. Generally such an artist contributes nothing new, for the public acclaims only what it already knows, what it recognises.
2. The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.
3. The colour of truth is grey.
4. To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one’s freedom.
5. Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
6. Everything’s already been said, but since nobody was listening, we have to start again.
7. Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.
8. It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
9. Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
10. Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. It’s their way of falling.

André Gide was a French author and winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in literature. He is the author of The Immoralist and The Counterfeiters. He also wrote satirical works, such as The Vatican Swindle. Gide was known for his confessional, first-person point of view from which he explored individual beliefs, psychological problems, and the organizational framework of a story.

Source for Image: Claudio Elias, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andr%C3%A9_Gide.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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