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Great minds tend toward banality. It is the noblest effort of individualism. But it implies a sort of modesty, which is so rare that it is scarcely found except in the greatest, or in beggars.

Andre Gide

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Andre Gide
Age: 82 †
Born: 1869
Born: November 22
Died: 1951
Died: December 19
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Essayist
Film Producer
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Prosaist
Translator
Travel Writer
Writer
Paris
France
André Paul Guillaume Gide
Andre Gide
Andre Paul Guillaume Gide
Found
Minds
Noblest
Great
Except
Beggar
Mind
Toward
Scarcely
Genius
Implies
Talent
Individualism
Greatest
Modesty
Sort
Rare
Beggars
Effort
Tend
Banality

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If the flower were not attached to its stem, it would flee at the approach of man, like the insect or the bird for the attribute of man on the earth, at least as long as he does not better understand his role, is to worry and frighten what he is not interested in taming for utilitarian purposes. Man is skillful in mistreating everything he can use
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I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan't be able to prevent.
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Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.
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The world will be saved by one or two people.
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Enduring fame is promised only to those writers who can offer to successive generations a substance constantly renewed for every generation arrives upon the scene with its own particular hunger.
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I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.
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In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.
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The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.
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If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn’t hesitate to do so.
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Atheism. There is not a single exalting and emancipating influence that does not in turn become inhibitory.
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The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.
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Often with good sentiments we produce bad literature.
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But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.
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The young people who come to me in the hope of hearing me utter a few memorable maxims are quite disappointed. Aphorisms are not my forte, I say nothing but banalities.... I listen to them and they go away delighted.
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What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.
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The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage my whole being surges toward the bars.
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We call happiness a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.
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The individual never asserts himself more than when he forgets himself.
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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, “seeing that his work was good.”
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To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.
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