Andre Maurois quotes
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“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.”
-- Andre MauroisSource : "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.
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“A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.”
-- 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 -
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“Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“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 -
“There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“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 -
“Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“We appreciate frankness from those who like us. Frankness from others is called insolence.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“Business is a combination of war and sport.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.”
-- Andre MauroisSource : "The Silence of Colonel Bramble". Book by Andre Maurois, 1918.
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“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.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy person has no time to form.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“A true woman loves a strong man because she knows his weaknesses. She protects as much as she is protected.”
-- Andre MauroisSource : "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.
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“Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it.”
-- Andre MauroisSource : "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
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“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 MauroisSource : "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.
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“Only passions can raise a man above the level of the animal.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.”
-- 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 -
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“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 -
“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 -
“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.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Love born of anxiety resembles a thorn shaped so that efforts to pull it out of one's flesh merely cause it to penetrate more deeply therein.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“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.”
-- 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 -
“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.”
-- 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 -
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“For intelligent people, action often means escape from thought, but it is a reasonable and a wise escape.”
-- 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 -
“Happiness flourishes where there is happiness.”
-- 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 -
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“It is restful to leave one's home; not because traveling does not entail varied and difficult daily actions, but because it removes our responsibilities.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“The longer the road to love, the keener is the pleasure.”
-- 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 -
“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 -
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“Genius consists of equal parts of natural aptitude and hard work.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“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.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“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.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“A great man's manias must be respected, because the time required to combat them is too precious to waste.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us.”
-- 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 -
“Medicine is a very old joke, but it still goes on.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“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.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“A great statesman, like a good housekeeper, knows that cleaning has to be done every morning.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Novelty, the most potent of all attractions, is also the most perishable.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“There are very few really brilliant men who have not had at least one madman among their ancestors.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“We console ourselves with several friends for not having found one real one.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“Every ten years you should delete from your mind a few ideas that your experience has proven to be false.”
-- 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 MauroisSource : "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.
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“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 discontent; men are troubled; and the literature is excellent.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“Marriage makes a man more vulnerable by doubling the expanse of sail exposed to the tempests of social life.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us in a rage.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“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.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.”
-- 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 -
“Our minds have unbelievable power over our bodies.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently.”
-- Andre MauroisSource : "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.
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“When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself Americanised”
-- Andre Maurois -
“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.”
-- Andre MauroisSource : "The Art of Happiness". Book by Andre Maurois, 1971.
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“Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves; their carcases collide with one another and creak.”
-- Andre Maurois -
“Happiness is never there to stay [...] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude.”
-- Andre Maurois -
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“The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.”
-- Andre Maurois
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