André Maurois: Trending quotes

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André Maurois: 404 quotes4 likes

“If you want to be thought anything of amongst Englishmen, you must make yourself see their point of view. They don't care for melancholy people, and have a contempt for sentiment. This applies to love as well as to patriotism and religion.”

André Maurois

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

“It is unprecedented for the men who made a revolution to remain in power after it is over. Yet one still finds revolutionaries: that proves how badly history is taught.”

André Maurois

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

“An order must first of all be clear. A meditation may be vague, a scheme always has something of the vision in it, but an order must be precise. All order can be misunderstood; an obscure one will never be understood. "To do a thing well," said Napoleon, "one must do to oneself." This is not always true, but the prudent leader will admit that few people understand and that almost everyone forgets. It is therefore not enough to give an order; one must see to its execution and, when giving it, anticipate anything that may nullify its effectiveness. The stupidity of human beings and the malevolence of chance are limitless. The unexpected always happens. The leader who endeavors to frustrate the onset of ill luck and who strengthens the weak points in his schemes against stupidity is more apt to impose his will than one who does not take these measures.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

“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.”

André Maurois

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

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

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Marriage

“A married man seeks to please his wife and not God.”

André Maurois

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

“… Hence, Paul Morand's generalization to the effect that French writers are never younger, never more free from constraint, than when they have passed their sixtieth birthday. By that time they have broken free from the romantic agonies of youth and turned their backs on that pursuit of honors which, in a country where literature plays a social role, absorbs too much of their energies during the years of maturity.”

André Maurois

The Art of Writing

“"I should not care to be married for my money," said Lucie. "Oh, strange creature!" said the doctor, "you would like to be loved for your face alone, that is to say, for the position in space of the albuminoids and fatty molecules placed there by the working of some Mendelian heredity, but you would dislike to be loved for your fortune, to which you have contributed by your labor and your domestic virtues.”

André Maurois

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

“The degree of our worthiness to become a free people shall be determined by our ability to respect a lawful leader, to agree to the existence of an opposition, to listen to its arguments, and especially to put the nation's good above all party prejudices and private interest. Liberty is not one of man's inalienable rights' it is a desirable but difficult acquisition, and must be contended for constantly.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

“A great man's manias must be respected, because the time required to combat them is too precious to waste. A departmental head and his chief reach a state of symbiosis; the clever official knows that words must never be spoken in the chief's presence because they stir up painful complexes or rouse his anger. He knows how to present a proposition so that the chief will be interested and give a favorable opinion. He is clearly aware of the latter's mistakes and weaknesses, respects him no less for them, but he does his best to make up for deficiencies.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

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

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

“The best way to honor friends who have died is to treat our living ones with equal affection.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

“The life of a couple is lived on the mental level of the more mediocre of the two beings who compose it.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Marriage

“There is no permanent equilibrium in human affairs. Faith, wisdom, and art allow one to attain it for a time; then outside influences and the souls' passions destroy it, and one must climb the rock again in he same manner. This vacillation round a fixed point is life, and the certainty that such a point exists is happiness. As the most ardent love, of one analyses its separate moments, is made up of innumerable minute conflicts settled invariably by fidelity, so happiness, if one reduces it to its important elements, is made up of struggles and anguish, and always saved by hope.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

“Must an artist live in the world or out of it? I believe this to be an unanswerable question. Total retirement, natural to the Saint, is injurious to most artists. They work marvelously so long as there are materials at hand. Goethe has further advice: "Solitude is a wonderful thing when one is at peace with oneself and when there is a definite task to be accomplished."”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

“The longer the road to love, the keener is the pleasure to be experienced by the sensitive lover.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

“There is little to be said of seniority. It is evident that when men grow older they acquire experience, unless they are completely idle, stupid, or too obstinate to learn anything. But there are many types of old men, and no one has ever maintained that, in order to pick out the best of the, it is enough to look at their birth certificates. Therefore appointments have to be made.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Leadership

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

André Maurois

Quoted in The Aging American
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

“The great classic writers, it will be said, sought rather to proclaim universal truths than to leave their imprint on them.”

André Maurois

The Art of Writing

“The friendship of two young people," says Goethe somewhere, "is delightful when the girl likes to learn and the boy to teach.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship