Andre Gide

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.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

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.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

To what a degree the same past can leave different marks - and especially admit of different interpretations.

Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.

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.

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.

Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.