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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the subjective nature of time and memory, suggesting that our perception of the past can be distorted.
Andre Gide uses this quote to illustrate how our recollections of the past can be misleading, akin to a person misjudging distances. It highlights the complexity of memory and time perception, emphasizing that what seems far away in our minds may actually be quite close when examined closely. This speaks to the human experience of grappling with memory and the interpretation of our life experiences.
Themes
MemoryPerceptionTimePastSubjectivity
In practice
Example use cases
In a reflective speech about personal growth, one might say, 'As Andre Gide pointed out, I often find myself lost in the memories of my past, misjudging how far I've actually come.'
More from Andre Gide
All quotes βDo 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.
Andre GideRead
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
I have seen firsthand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty go unchallenged.
Desmond TutuRead
Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something and thereby becoming diminished and being less. These two movements obscure the fact that Being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already within you, Now.
Eckhart TolleRead
Language failed me very often, but then, the substitute for me was silence, but not violence.
Elie WieselRead
There's a taste in my mouth and it's no taste at all.
David BowieRead
A faith without some doubts is like a human body with no antobodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask the hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.
Timothy KellerRead
When you try to grasp the way the Western world is going, you see that we are on a ratchet towards a surveillance state, which is coming to include the whole population in its surveillance. This is our reward for accepting the restraints on the way we live now.
Tom StoppardRead