Know thyself! A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly. – Andre Gide
Art begins with resistance – at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor. – Andre Gide
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 Gide
And to my thinking as a lover of life, butterflies, soap-bubbles, and whatever is of their kind among men, know most of happiness. To see these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls flitting about—that moveth Zarathustra to tears and to song. – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), “Of Reading and Writing,” Thus Spake Zarathus