Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the present with the past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be encountered. Proust in Venice, Matisse's birdcages overlooking the flower market at Nice, Gide on the seventeenth-century quais of Toulon, Lorca in Granada, Picasso by Saint-Germain-des-Pr?s: there lies civilization and for me it can exist only under those liberal regimes in which the Present is alive and therefore capable of assimilating the Past.
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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.
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Another distinguished critic has agreed with Gide--that old lady in the anecdote who was accused by her niece of being illogical. For some time she could not be brought to understand what logic was, and when she grasped its true nature she was not so much angry as contemptuous. 'Logic! Good gracious! What rubbish!' she exclaimed. 'How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?' Her nieces, educated young women, thought that she was pass
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Know thyself? A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly.
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The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.
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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.
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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.
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Before I explain my book to others, I expect them to explain it to me. To claim to explain it first is to immediately narrow down its reach; for if we know what we intended to say, we do not know whether we said only that. - One always says more than THAT. - And what interests me most is what I put in without knowing, - that unconscious share, which I would like to call God's share.
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The abominable effort to take one's sins with one to paradise.
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I would like the events never to be told directly by the author, but rather to be introduced (and several times, from various angles) by those among the characters on whom they will have had any effect. I would like those events, in the account they will make of them, to appear slightly distorted; a kind of interest stems, for the reader, from the simple fact that he should need to restore. The story requires his collaboration in order to properly take shape.
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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.
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It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.
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It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.
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Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother's breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful. ... Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun.
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There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself, 'It all depends on me.'
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One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
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Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.
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Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
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Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does, the better
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The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.
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What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.
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Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
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Obtain from yourself all that makes complaining useless. No longer implore from others what you yourself can obtain.
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The most decisive actions of our life -- I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future -- are, more often than not, unconsidered.
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Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
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Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.
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Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.
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Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.
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A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.
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There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.
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