Andre Maurois Quotes (45 Quotes)


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

    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.

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

    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.

    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.


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

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

    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.

    Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.

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

    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.

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

    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

    Our minds have unbelievable power over our bodies.

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

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

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

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

    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.

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

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

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

    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.

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

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

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

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

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

    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.

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

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

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

    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.


    The minds of different generations are as impenetrable one by the other as are the monads of Leibniz.

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

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

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

    In literature, as in love, we are astonished at the choice made by other people.

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

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

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

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

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


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