Andre Maurois Quotes

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

Happiness flourishes where there is happiness. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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? ~ Andre Maurois

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

Our minds have unbelievable power over our bodies. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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

One might have said that reason made him flee from reason. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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

Sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

We are almost always the craftsman of our own unhappiness. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

Business is a combination of war and sport. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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

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

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

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

He who wants to do everything will never do anything. ~ Andre Maurois

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

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

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

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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. ~ Andre Maurois

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

A gentleman is never in a hurry. ~ Andre Maurois

How has The Grand Illusion held up over the years? It is not enough to say that it has retained its power. Not only has the stature of the film remained undiminished by the passage of time (except in a few minor details), but the innovation, the audacity, and, for want of a better word, the modernity of the direction have acquired an even greater impact. ~ Andre Bazin

Stacking shelves in a supermarket. The reason I didn't like it is because I'm very clumsy. We had a floor polisher you'd push up and down the aisles, and klutz me would always knock the bottles over in the drinks aisle. Unsurprisingly I got fired. ~ Peter Andre

People need to be edited; life needs to be edited. I need to be edited. ~ Andre Leon Talley

I was treading water, trying neither to drown nor to swim to safety, just staying in place, because here was the truth - even if I couldn't speak the truth, or even hint at it, yet I could swear it lay around us, the way we say of a necklace we've just lost while swimming: I know it's down there somewhere. ~ Andre Aciman

[The people that worked on The Simpsons] just had good taste. They knew how to execute absurd jokes. ~ Eric Andre

Bonobos are unique among great apes because they are not dominated by males. ~ Claudine Andre

The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other. ~ Andre Dubus III

I never could get close enough to you. In the months we were together, all I wanted was to love you more, to become part of you. ~ Bella Andre

I belonged here the way I belonged to this planet and its people, but on one condition: alone, always alone. ~ Andre Aciman

It means a lot to you, to be out there. The highs are pretty high, and the lows are pretty low. You know, it's easy to feel like you let the team down. I mean, at the end of the day we still got to figure out a way to get through the tie. ~ Andre Agassi

I personally go to the airport looking like a homeless person, because I think people will leave me alone. But I dress myself with my luggage - all my luggage matches. ~ Andre Leon Talley

Do not scorn little victories. ~ Andre Gide

One life is but a single act. One body - a garment. One century - a day. One task - an experience. One triumph - an acquisition. One death - a breath of renovation. ~ Andre Luiz Moreira

What never ceased to amaze me and cast a halo around our evening was that ever since we'd met, we'd been thinking along the same lines, and when we feared we weren't or felt we were wrong-footing each other, it was simply because we had learned not to trust that anyone could possibly think and behave the way we did, which was why I was so diffident with him and mistrusted every impulse in myself and couldn't have been happier when I saw how easily we'd shed some of our screens. ~ Andre Aciman

Our bodies won't have secrets now. ~ Andre Aciman

How historians explain time is one thing, but how we live time is quite another. ~ Andre Aciman

All fear is imaginary, reality is its antidote. ~ Andre Comte Sponville

Photography has freed the plastic arts from their obsession with likeness. ~ Andre Bazin

In the future, as in the past, the great ideas [of mathematics] must be simplifying ideas, the creator must always be one who clarifies, for himself, and for others, the most complicated issues of formulas and concepts. ~ Andre Weil

It is impossible to think of France except in terms of individuals. ~ Andre Siegfried

I never drove a car in my life. Given my drinking habits in those days, I would have been dead a long time ago - stumbling out of a bar at 4 a.m. and getting into a car. ~ Carl Andre

It's easy K. on one side of the page you got your costs and on the other side your benefits. All you do is mark which one is which, then you weigh one side against the other and you get your decision just like that. that's all you ever have to do. i live by this."
"But what if you don't know the difference between a benefit and a cost? what if you've never been very good at telling a plus from a minus? ~ Andre Dubus III

I have three things: my cab, my zeb, and my dignity. Without one, the other two are worthless. ~ Andre Aciman

Today I re-noticed how amazing your smile is. ~ Andre Bramble

I myself shall continue living in my glass house where you can always see who comes to call, where everything hanging from the the ceiling and on the walls stays where it is as if by magic, where I sleep nights in a glass bed, under glass sheets, where who I am will sooner or later appear etched by a diamond. ~ Andre Breton

Teaching well draws from the same well that writing draws from: the reserves of compassion and ability to listen and concentrate on another. So I have to have fine line between teaching and writing. I try not to ever think of career. I just try to go to the dream world every day. ~ Andre Dubus

What did one do around here?
Nothing. Wait for summer to end.
What did one do in the winter, then?
I smiled at the answer I was about to give. He got the gist and said, 'Don't tell me: wait for summer to come, right? ~ Andre Aciman

This is like coming home, like coming home after years away among Trojans and Lestrygonians, like coming home to a place where everyone is like you, where people know, they just know - coming home as when everything falls into place and you suddenly realize that for seventeen years all you'd been doing was fiddling with the wrong combination. ~ Andre Aciman

We protected Andre Johnson, given him long-term contracts. Brian Cushing's got a long-term contract. Arian Foster. So certain key players, core players, we've tried not to tie them up for a long period of time. ~ Bob McNair