Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.
Andre GideRead
An artist cannot get along without a public; and when the public is absent, what does he do? He invents it, and turning his back on his age, he looks toward the future for what the present denies.
Interpretation
What this quote means
An artist relies on an audience for their work, and in their absence, they create their own vision for the future.
This quote highlights the intrinsic relationship between an artist and their audience. It suggests that an artist's creativity is fueled by the desire for connection with the public, and even when that audience is not present, the artist continues to forge ahead by imagining new possibilities and ideas that go beyond current societal limitations.
Themes
ArtistPublicCreateFutureAbsence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the role of art in society, this quote can highlight the necessity of a public for an artist's work.
More from Andre Gide
All quotes →Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.
Andre GideRead
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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Through fear of resembling one another, through horror of having to submit, through uncertainty as well, through skepticism and complexity, there is a multitude of individual little beliefs for the triumph of strange little individuals.
Andre GideRead
It is the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing.
Andre GideRead
It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.
Andre GideRead
Similar quotes
As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with our own human personalities but also with the unseen but ever-present throng of ideas, visions, stories, poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born.
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If it adapts itself to what the majority of our society wants, art will be a meaningless recreation.
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The sadness of the incomplete, the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art.
E. M. ForsterRead
I cannot conceive of music that expresses absolutely nothing.
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I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.
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The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn't have needed anyone since.
William FaulknerRead