André Maurois: Trending quotes

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“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.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Family Life

“So, human beings complain that the world is ill-made, do they? But ill-made for whom? For Man, who, in the immense design of the Universe is no more than an unimportant mould! The probability is that everything in this world which we think is botched or erroneous has its reasons at a totally different level of existence. The mould endures, no doubt, a small amount of suffering, but somewhere there are giants who, huge in stature as in mind, live in a state of semi-divinity. This is Voltaire's answer to the problem of evil. It is not very satisfactory because the mould need never have been created, and, in the eyes of God, it may well be that mere size is of no importance.”

André Maurois

The Art of Writing

“Women apparently achieve happiness more easily with energetic and virile men, men achieve it more easily with women who are affectionate and willing to be led. Very young women declare that they want to marry men whom they can dominate, but I have never discovered a woman who was truly happy with a man she did not admire for his strength and courage, nor a normal man who was perfectly happy with an Amazon. The fact is that the element of chance in these matters rarely allows a man or a woman to choose a life companion by an act of pure volition, and it is better so; instinct, despite its mistakes, is surer here than intelligence. The question Do I have to fall in love? should not be asked; one must feel the answer to it within oneself. The birth of love, like all other births, is the work of nature.”

André Maurois

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

“Human nature is such that the spectacle of another's weakness awakens even in the best of us a feeling of power which contains, along with the sincerest pity, an almost imperceptible mingling of pleasure.”

André Maurois

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

“The leveling influence of mediocrity and the denial of the supreme importance of the mind's development account for many revolts against family life. There are many occasions when great men are convinced that, in order to fulfill their destinies, they must escape from the warmth and indulgence of their own families.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Family Life

“The officer of today has seen active service, it's true but as a matter of fact it is quite sufficient in war to have good health and no more imagination than a fish. It is in peace-time that one ought to judge a soldier.”

André Maurois

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

“The art of thinking is also the art of believing, because no human being at the present stage of civilization could safely call all his individual and social beliefs into question again or submit them to his conscience. To change all one's opinions is a mental diversion which requires leisure for its indulgence. In order to live a life of action, man must accept most of the moral, social, and religious laws which have been recognized as necessary by his predecessors.”

André Maurois

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

“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.”

André Maurois

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

“At eighty, a man has experienced everything: love, and its ending; ambition, and its emptiness; several foolish beliefs, and their rectification. Fear of death is not very great; affections and interest concern people who have died and events of the past. In a cinema theatre when the show is continuous the spectator has the right to retain his seat as long as he wishes to do so, but actually, when the scenes he has already witnessed reappear on the screen, he leaves the theatre. Life is a continuous show. The same events take place every thirty years, and they become boring. One after another the spectators take their departure.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

“It is easy to be admired when one remains inaccessible.”

André Maurois

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

“You see us poor Englishmen searching hard for the solution of a problem when there isn't one. You may think that the Irish want certain definite reforms, and that they will be happy and contented the day they get them; but not at all. What amuses them is discussion itself, plotting in theory. They play with the idea of Home Rule; if we gave it them, the game would be finished and they would invent another, probably a more dangerous one.”

André Maurois

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

“In ancient and respected monarchies the transmission of power is accomplished peacefully, and the hereditary leader enjoys, in the estimation of his subject, an added natural prestige of incalculable value. The high position occupied by the king of England is due to such prestige. Napoleon, who wished to found a dynasty, fully realized this; he knew that the king thought conquered, would still be king, but that a self-created emperor needed the support of continuous victories.”

André Maurois

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

“Civilizations founded upon polygamy have always given way to those founded upon monogamy. Polygamy weakens men and diminishes the charm of the community in which it is practiced; and in any case it is foreign to the tastes and requirements of our modern women.”

André Maurois

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

“Whoever wants to be a hero ought to drink brandy.”

André Maurois

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

“Most of us have to conquer and ceaselessly reconquer the person whom we desire. It is therefore necessary to arouse love in that person.”

André Maurois

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

“True friendship implies full confidence, which may only be completely given or completely withdrawn. If friendship has continually to be analyzed, nursed, and cured, it will cause more anguish than love itself, without having love's strength and its remedies. And if this confidence is ill-placed? Well - I would rather be betrayed by a false friend than deceive a true one.”

André Maurois

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

“Almost all men improve on acquaintance.”

André Maurois

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

“Obviously the future must be considered in the light of one's own power to influence events. The man of action cannot be a fatalist. The architect has to think of the future of the house he is building; a workman has to take measure for safeguarding his old age; a member of the Chamber has to consider the possible effects of the budget for which he is going to vote. But once decisions are made and measures taken, peace of mind must be re-established. It is absurd to try to foresee things when the means of doing it are lacking.”

André Maurois

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

“A successful marriage puts an end to feminine friendships; but if marriage is a failure, the young woman must have others to confide in.”

André Maurois

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

“Faults of the mind increase with old age as do those of the features. An old man is incapable of taking up new ideas because he lacks the power to assimilate them, so he clings with crabbed tenacity to the opinions of his maturity. He pompously believes himself able to deal with any problem. Contradiction infuriates him, and he regards it as lack of respect. "In my days," he says, "we never contradicted our elders." He forgets that in his day these same words were spoken to him by his grandfather. Unable to interest himself in what is happening round him and thereby keep himself up to date, he tells stories of his past over and over again; and these are so boring to his younger listeners that they end by avoiding him altogether. Solitude is the greatest evil of old age; one by one lifelong friends and relative disappear, and they cannot be replaced. The desert widens, and death would be pleasant if its rapid approach were not so curiously threatening.”

André Maurois

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old