Andre Maurois Quotations

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Business is a combination of war and sport.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.

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

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

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

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

When yyou become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself Americanized

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond.

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

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

Advice is always a confession.

Few are they who have never had a chance to achieve happiness- and fewer those who have taken that chance.

Happiness flourishes where there is happiness.

Inspiration in matters of taste will not come twice.

There are deserts in every life, and the desert must be depicted if we are to give a fair and complete idea of the country.

He who wants to do everything will never do anything.

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

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

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.

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

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

Live as if you were eternal.

Marriage makes a man more vulnerable by doubling the expanse of sail exposed to the tempests of social life.

Genius consists of equal parts of natural aptitude and hard work.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us.

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

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.

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

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.

Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading great authors; by trying at the outset to imitate them; by daring then to be original; by destroying one's first productions.

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.

The need to express one's self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action.

If you create a character, you create a destiny.

All of us, from time to time, need a plunge into freedom and novelty, after which routine and discipline will seem delightful by contrast.

Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves; their carcases collide with one another and creak.

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

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

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

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.

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

Housekeeping in common is for women the acid test.

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

A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.

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.

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

The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why? Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.

When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself Americanised

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

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.

Our minds have unbelievable power over our bodies.

It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently.

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.

British conversation is like a game of cricket or a boxing match; personal allusions are forbidden like hitting below the belt, and anyone who loses his temper is disqualified.

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.

Style is the outcome of constraint.

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

We don't go to school to learn, but to be soaked in the prejudices of our class, without which we should be useless and unhappy.

Old age diminishes our strength; it takes away our pleasures one after the other; it withers the soul as well as the body; it renders adventure and friendship difficult; and finally it is shadowed by thoughts of death.

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

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.

Medicine is a very old joke, but it still goes on.

A gentleman is never in a hurry.

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.

I knew a man who had been virtually drowned and then revived. He said that his death had not been painful.

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

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

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.