Nathaniel = Us

     Do not hope, Nathaniel, to find God here or there — but everywhere,
     Every creature points to God, none reveals Him.
     Every creature we let our eyes dwell on distracts us from God.

     While other people were publishing or working, I, on the contrary, devoted three years to travel to forget all that I had learned with my head. This unlearning was slow and difficult, it was of more use to me than all the learning imposed by men, and was really the beginning of an education.
     You will never know the efforts it cost us to become interested in life; but now that life does interest us it will be like everything else — passionately.

     I chastised my flesh gladly, taking more pleasure in the chastisement than in the fault — so intoxicating was the pride I took in not sinning simply.
     Suppress in yourself the idea of merit — one of the minds great stumbling-blocks.

....All our life long we have been tormented by the uncertainty of our paths. How can I put it? All choice, when one comes to think of it, is terrifying: liberty when there is no duty to guide it, is terrifying. The path that has to be chosen lies through a wholly unexplored country, where each one makes his own discoveries, and — note this — for himself alone; so that the vaguest track in the darkest Africa is more easily distinguishable.... Shady groves allure us, and the mirage of perenial springs. Or rather, springs will flow where our desires bid them; for the country only comes into existence as our approach gives it form, and the landscape about us gradually falls into shape as we advance; we cannot see as far as the horizon; and even the foreground is nothing but a succession and changeable appearance.
     But why comparisons when the matter is so serious? We all believe we shall eventually discover God. In the meantime, alas, where are we to address our prayers? At last we end by saying that He — the Unfindable — is everywhere, anywhere, and kneel down at haphazard.
     And so, Nathaniel, you are like the man who should follow as his guide the light he holds in his own hand.

     Wherever you go, you will never meet with anything but God. "God," said Menalcas, "is what lies ahead of us."

     Nathaniel, look at everything as you pass on your way, but stay nowhere. Remember that it is only God who is not transitory.

     Let the importance lie in your look, not in the thing you look at.

     All your gathered knowledge of what is outside you will remain outside you to all eternity. Why do you attach so much importance to it?
     There is profit in desires, and profit in the satisfaction of desires — for so they are increased. And indeed, Nathaniel, each one of my desires has enriched me more than the always deceitful possession of the object of my desire.

     Many are the delicious things, Nathaniel, for which I have been consumed with love. Their splendor came from my ceaseless burning for them. I never wearied. All ferver consumed me with love — consumed me deliciously.
     A heretic among heretics, I was constantly drawn to the most opposite opinions, the most devious thoughts, the extremest divergences. Nothing interested me in a mind but what made it different from others. I went so far as to forbid myself sympathy, which seemed to me the mere recognition of a common emotion.
     No, not sympathy, Nathaniel — love.

     Act without judging whether the action is right or wrong. Love without caring whether what you love is good or bad.
     Nathaniel, I will teach you ferver.
     A harrowing life, Nathaniel, rather than a quiet one. Let me have no rest but the sleep of death. I am afraid that every desire, every energy I have not satisfied during my life may survive to torment me. I hope that after I have expressed on this earth all that was in me waiting to be expressed — I hope that  I may die satisfied and utterly hopeless.

     No, not sympathy, Nathaniel, love. Surely you understand they are not the same. It was the fear of losing love that made me sometimes sympathize with sorrows, troubles, sufferings that else I could hardly have borne. Leave to each one the care of his own life.
— Andrè Gide, The Fruits of the Earth, Book I, pp. 11-14.

     Never long, Nathaniel, to taste the waters of the past.
     Never seek, Nathaniel, to find again the past in the future. Seize from every moment its unique novelty and do not prepare your joys — or else believe that in its prepared place another joy will surprise you.
     Why have you not understood that all happiness is a chance encounter and at every moment presents itself to you like a beggar by the roadside? Woe betide you if you say your happiness is dead because you had not imagined it in that form — and because you will only accept a happiness in conformity with your principles and wishes.
— Andrè Gide, Ibid., Book II, p. 34.

....The great waves advance and succeed one another noiselessly. They follow one another, and each in turn lifts the same drop of water and barely moves it from its place. Their form alone moves on; the water is lent them, and leaves them, and accompanies them never. Form never dwells in the same being for more than a moment; it passes on through each being, then leaves it. Let there be no thought, my soul, to which you cling. Cast each one of your thoughts to the sea winds and let them bear it from you. Your own efforts will never carry it up to heaven.
— Andrè Gide, Ibid., Book III, p. 59.