Andre Maurois Quotes

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

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

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

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

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

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.

We appreciate frankness from those who like us. Frankness from others is called insolence.

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

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

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.

A true woman loves a strong man because she knows his weaknesses. She protects as much as she is protected.

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

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

Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

A friend loves you for your intelligence, a mistress for your charm, but your family's love is unreasoning; you were born into it and are of its flesh and blood. Nevertheless it can irritate you more than any group of people in the world.

Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy person has no time to form.

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.

If you create a character, you create a destiny.

We don't love a woman for what she says, we like what she says because we love her.

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.

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.

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

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

Every ten years you should delete from your mind a few ideas that your experience has proven to be false.

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.

An old man, having retired from active life, regains the gaity and irresponsibility of childhood. He is ready to play, he cannot run with his son, but he can totter with his grandson. Our first and last steps have the same rhythm.

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.

Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game 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.

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.

One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.

The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it... I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent.

Sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond.

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.

You don't love a man for what he says, but love what he says because you love him.

Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us.

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

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

Marriage is not something that can be accomplished all at once; it has to be constantly reaccomplished. A couple must never indulge in idle tranquility with the remark: "The game is won; let's relax." The game is never won. The chances of life are such that anything is possible. Remember what the dangers are for both sexes in middle age. A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

We console ourselves with several friends for not having found one real one.

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.

The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

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

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.

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

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