Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide exposes to public view the conflict and eventual reconciliation of the two sides of his personality, split apart by a straitlaced education and a narrow social moralism. Gide's work can be seen as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritanical constraints, and centres on his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of how to be fully oneself, even to the point of owning one's sexual nature, without at the same time betraying one's values. His political activity is informed by the same ethos, as suggested by his repudiation of communism after his 1936 voyage to the USSR.
'Therefore' is a word the poet must not know.
poetry
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
truth
There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.
art & work
Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.
change & work
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
courage
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.
work
Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
art
Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.
happiness
It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
age
The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.
alone
The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.
art
Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.
inspirational
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
time
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.
travel
Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
experience