Quotes from The Immoralist

“Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“You have to let other people be right' was his answer to their insults. 'It consoles them for not being anything else.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“A man thinks he owns things, and it is he who is owned”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“Yet I'm sure there's something more to be read in a man. People dare not -- they dare not turn the page. The laws of mimicry -- I call them the laws of fear. People are afraid to find themselves alone, and don't find themselves at all. I hate this moral agoraphobia -- it's the worst kind of cowardice. You can't create something without being alone. But who's trying to create here? What seems different in yourself: that's the one rare thing you possess, the one thing which gives each of us his worth; and that's just what we try to suppress. We imitate. And we claim to love life.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free is the task.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“Nothing is more fatal to happiness than the remembrance of happiness.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“I can't expect others to share my virtues. It's good enough for me if they share my vices.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“Poverty makes a slave out of men. In order to eat he will accept work that gives no pleasure.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“After much searching I have found the thing that sets me apart: a sort of stubborn attachment to evil.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“I exist only as a whole; my only claim is to be natural, and the pleasure I feel in an action, I take as a sign that I ought to do it.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“They establish distinctions and reserves which I cannot apply to myself, for I exist only as a whole; my only claim is to be natural, and the pleasure I feel in an action, I take as a sign that I ought to do it.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“Most people believe it is only by constraint they can get any good out of themselves, and so they live in a state of psychological distortion. It is his own self that each of them is most afraid of resembling. Each of them sets up a pattern and imitates it; he doesn't even choose the pattern he imitates: he accepts a pattern that has been chosen for him. And yet I verily believe there are other things to be read in man. But people don't dare to - they don't dare to turn the page. Laws of imitation! Laws of fear, I call them. The fear of finding oneself alone - that is what they suffer from - and so they don't find themselves at all. I detest such moral agoraphobia - the most odious cowardice I call it. Why, one always has to be alone to invent anything - but they don't want to invent anything. The part in each of us that we feel is different from other people is just the part that is rare, the part that makes our special value - and that is the very thing people try to suppress. They go on imitating. And yet they think they love life.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“The very things that separated me and distinguished me from other people were what mattered; the very things no one else would or could say, these were the things I had to say.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“No encounter occured that day, and I was glad of it; I took out of my pocket a little Homer I had not opened since leaving Marseilles, reread three lines of the Odyssey, learned them by heart; then, finding sufficient sustenance in their rhythm and reveling in them at leisure, I closed the book and remained, trembling, more alive than I had thought possible, my mind numb with happiness.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“I like life well enough to want to live it awake”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“The things one feels are different about oneself are the things that are rare, that give each person their value - and these are the things they try to repress. The imitate and make out they love life!”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“I had forgotten I was alone; I sat there, waiting for nothing, oblivious to the time.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“One must allow other people to be right," he used to say when he was insulted, "It consoles them for not being anything else.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“Terre en vacance d'oeuvres d'art. Je méprise ceux qui ne savent reconnaître la beauté que transcrite déjà et toute interprétée. Le peuple arabe a ceci d'admirable que, son art, il le vit, il le chante et le dissipe au jour le jour; il ne le fixe point et ne l'embaume en aucune oeuvre. C'est la cause et l'effet de l'absence de grands artistes. J'ai toujours cru les grands artistes ceux qui osent donner droit de beauté à des choses si naturelles qu'elles font dire après à qui les voit : 'Comment n'avais-je pas compris jusqu'alors que cela était aussi beau?...”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“…the facts of history all appeared to me like specimens in a herbarium, permanently dried, so that it was easy to forget they had once upon a time been juicy with sap and alive in the sun.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“I have a horror of rest; possessions encourage one to indulge in it, and there's nothing like security for making one fall asleep; I like life well enough to live it awake, and so, in the very midst of my riches, I maintain the sensation of a state of precariousness, by which means I aggravate, or at any rate intensify, my life. I will not say I like danger, but I like life to be hazardous, and I want it to demand at every moment the whole of my courage, my happiness, my health...”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“The part in each of us that we feel is different from other people is just the part that is rare, the part that makes our special value - and that is the very thing people try to suppress. They go on imitating. And yet they think they love life”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“I looked at myself in the mirror and didn't like what I saw.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“No estoy ni triste ni alegre; este aire de aquí te llena de una muy vaga exaltación y te hace conocer un estado que parece tan lejano de la alegría como de la pena; quizá esto sea la felicidad.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“My eyes filled with tears and I wept long and hard, unable, and unwilling, to stop.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

“Oh," I thought, "without a doubt, everything in my life is falling to pieces. Nothing that my hand grasps can my hand hold.”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist

About the author

Popular quotes

“The second project is in the field of metaphysics: with the aim of showing that, in the words of Professor H. M. Tooten, “evolution is a hoax”, Olivier Gratiolet has undertaken an exhaustive inventory of all the imperfections and inadequacies to which the human organism is heir: vertical posture, for example, gives man only a precarious balance: muscular tension alone keeps him upright, thus causing constant fatigue and discomfort in the spinal column, which, although sixteen times stronger than it would have been were it straight, does not allow man to carry a meaningful weight on his back; feet ought to be broader, more spread out, more specifically suited to locomotion, whereas what he has are only atrophied hands deprived of prehensile ability; legs are not sturdy enough to bear the body’s weight, which makes them bend, and moreover they are a strain on the heart, which has to pump blood about three feet up, whence come swollen feet, varicose veins, etc.; hip joints are fragile and constantly prone to arthrosis or serious fractures; arms are atrophied and too slender; hands are frail, especially the little finger, which has no use, the stomach has no protection whatsoever, no more than the genitals do; the neck is rigid and limits rotation of the head, the teeth do not allow food to be grasped from the sides, the sense of smell is virtually nil, night vision is less than mediocre, hearing is very inadequate; man’s hairless and unfurred body affords no protection against cold, and, in sum, of all the animals of creation, man, who is generally considered the ultimate fruit of evolution, is the most naked of all.”
― Georges Perec, quote from Life A User's Manual

“Here's to another year and let's hope it's above ground.”
― Carol Shields, quote from The Stone Diaries

“Every word is part of a picture, Every sentence is a picture. All you have to do is link them together.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from Freak the Mighty

“Tikkun olam.”

Exactly. Basically, it says that the world has been broken into pieces. All this chaos, all this discord. And our job - everyone’s job - is to try to put the pieces back together. To make things whole again.”

And you believe that?”

I guess I do. I mean, I don’t know how the world broke. And I don’t know if there’s a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our world - don’t you feel we’re becoming more and more fragmented? I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces - they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that.”

Do you really think it’s getting worse? I mean, aren’t we better off than we were twenty years ago? Or a hundred?”

We’re better off. But I don’t know if the world’s better off. I don’t know if the two are the same thing.”

You’re right.”

Excuse me?”

I said, ‘You’re right.’”

But nobody ever says, ‘You’re right.’ Just like that.”

Really?”

Really.”

…Then it hits me.

Maybe we’re the pieces,”

What?”

Maybe that’s it. With what you were talking about before. The world being broken. Maybe it isn’t that we’re supposed to find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe we’re the pieces. Maybe, what we’re supposed to do is come together. That’s how we stop the breaking.”

Tikkun olam.”
― Rachel Cohn, quote from Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“ لا يموت الإنسان ما دام له أثر لم يمت ”
― John Steinbeck, quote from To a God Unknown

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.