Andre Maurois Quotes

If you value a man's regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper - and despise it.

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author's life.

We can talk frankly about our defects only to those who recognise our qualities.

Experience is valuable only when it has brought suffering and when the suffering has left its mark upon both body and mind.

People are what you make them. A scornful look turns into a complete fool a man of average intelligence. A contemptuous indifference turns into an enemy a woman who, well treated, might have been an angel.

In a discussion, the difficulty lies, not in being able to defend your opinion, but to know it.

Modesty and unselfishness - these are the virtues which men praise - and pass by.

Happiness flourishes where there is happiness.

Woman's great strength lies in being late or absent. Presence immediately reveals the weak points of our beloved; when she is absent she become one of the sylph-like figures of our adolescence whom we endowed with perfection.

Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record.

The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it.

One might have said that reason made him flee from reason.

Novelty, the most potent of all attractions, is also the most perishable.

If, in New York, you arrive late for an appointment, say, "I took a taxi".

Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late.

A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

What men call friendship is only social intercourse, an exchange of favours and good offices; it comes down to a commercial dealing in which self-esteem always expects to profit.

Either the soul is immortal and we shall not die, or it perishes with the flesh, and we shall not know that we are dead. Live, then, as if you were eternal.

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization.

To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.

Happiness is never there to stay [ ... ] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude.

A great writer has a high respect for values. His essential function is to raise life to the dignity of thought, and this he does by giving it a shape.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.

He who has found a good wife has found great happiness, but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain.

The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not as a stumbling-block.

The art of reading is in great part that of acquiring a better understanding of life from one's encounter with it in a book.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity
romantic love and gunpowder.

We are almost always the craftsman of our own unhappiness.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

It is not events and the things one sees and enjoys that produce happiness, but a state of mind which can endow events with its own quality, and we must hope for the duration of this state rather than the recurrence of pleasurable events.

To feminine eyes a man's prestige, or his fame, envelops him in a luminous haze which obscures his faults. The triumphs of an aviator, an actor, a football player, an orator are often responsible for the beginning of a love affair.

To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.

Among the idle rich, boredom is one of the most common causes of unhappiness. People who have difficulty in earning their living may suffer greatly, but they are not bored. Wealthy men and women become bored when they depend upon the theater for their enjoyment instead of making their own lives interesting.

Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires
seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage.

There are very few really brilliant men who have not had at least one madman among their ancestors.

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings.

Stupidity is a factor to be reckoned with in human affairs. The true leader always expects to encounter it, and prepares to endure it patiently so long as it is normal stupidity. He knows that his ideas will be distorted, his orders carelessly executed; and that there will be jealousy among his assistants. He takes these inevitable phenomena into account, and instead of attempting to find men without faults, who are non-existent, he tries to make use of the best men at his disposal - as they are, and not as they ought to be.

The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.

Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game is finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.

A few days later we went to the opera together to watch my beloved Siegfried. It was a pleasure for me to listen to it beside the man who had become my hero.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force.

He who wants to do everything will never do anything.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

It is often said that in prosperity we have many friends, but that we are usually neglected when things go badly. I disagree. Not only do malicious people flock about us in order to witness our ruin, but other unfortunates as well, who have been kept away by our happiness, and now feel close to us on account of our troubles.

To desire to be perpetually in the society of a pretty woman until the end of one's days, is as if, because one likes good wine, one wished always to have one's mouth full of it.

She was remarkably beautiful. And yet there was something in her eyes that I didn't like. A bit of...no...I don't want to say falsity...that would be too...it was--I don't know how to explain it -- it was something like triumphant cunning. Odile needed to dominate. She wanted to impose her will, her version of the truth. Her beauty had given her a lot of self-confidence and she believed, almost in good faith, that if she said something then it became true. This worked with your husband, who adored her, but not with me, and she resented me for that.

For intelligent people, action often means escape from thought, but it is a reasonable and a wise escape.

The clear and simple words of common usage are always better than those of erudition. The jargon of the philosophers not seldom conceals an absence of thought.

[ ... ] marriage is one thing, and love is another ... You need to have a solid canvas; nobody stops you to weave the arabesques ...

Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.

The friendship of two young people,' says Goethe somewhere, 'is delightful when the girl likes to learn and the boy to teach.' It will perhaps be said that this virgin curiosity is no more than unconscious physical desire; but what does it matter, if this desire sharpens the mind and deadens conceit?

Information is not culture. In the mind of a truly educated person, facts are organized, and they make up a living world in the image of the world of reality.

A great man's manias must be respected, because the time required to combat them is too precious to waste.

People are discontent; men are troubled; and the literature is excellent.

Our minds have unbelievable power over our bodies.

Like a bird, when his cage is opened, stays on his perch, dazzled by freedom, the postponed traveler does not see that his cage, with its bars of anxiety, it is open.

Nothing provokes more cynicism than a great love that was not shared, but nothing produces more modesty either; I was utterly surprised to feel loved. The truth is: a passion that fully preoccupies a man draws women to him when he least wants them. Even if he is sentimental and tender by nature, when he is obsessed with another he becomes indifferent and almost brutal. Because he is unhappy, he sometimes allows himself to be temped by the offer of affection. As soon as he has tasted this affection, he tires of it and does not disguise the fact. Without wishing to and without even realizing it, he plays the most appalling game. He becomes dangerous and conquers because he himself has been vanquished. This was the case with me. I had never been more convinced of my own inability to attract women, I had never felt less desire to attract them, and I had never received so much clear proof of devotion and love.

A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.

Sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond.

The life of a couple is lived on the mental level of the more mediocre of the two beings who compose it.

A gentleman is never in a hurry.

A great statesman, like a good housekeeper, knows that cleaning has to be done every morning.

An unsatisfied woman requires luxury, but a woman who is in love with a man will lie on a board.

Almost all great writers have as their motif, more or less disguised, the passage from childhood to maturity, the clash between the thrill of expectation and the disillusioning knowledge of truth. 'Lost Illusion' is the undisclosed title of every novel.

Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival - even from a friend. This emotion is a complex one, mad up of vanity, respect for another woman's taste, and the need to establish self-assurance by winning a difficult victory. Don Juan chose his first mistresses; later he was chosen.