Humanity cherishes its ...

Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother's breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful. ... Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun.
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 Andre Gide

Quotes from the same author

Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.
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 Andre Gide
Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.
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 Andre Gide
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.
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 Andre Gide
Man is extraordinarily clever in preventing himself from being happy; it would seem that the less able he is to endure misfortune the more apt he is to attach himself to it.
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 Andre Gide
Of some forty families I have been able to observe, I know hardly four in which the parents do not act in such a way that nothing would be more desirable for the child than to escape their influence.
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 Andre Gide