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André Maurois Quotes
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André Maurois was a French author.



✵ 26. July 1885 – 9. October 1967
André Maurois photo
André Maurois: 202 quotes4 likes

André Maurois Quotes

“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“True friendship implies full confidence, which may only be completely given or completely withdrawn.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

“Balzac has often provided us with the tragic spectacle of an old man in love. Obliged now to obtain with gifts and favors what his personal charm won for him in his earlier days, the aged lover will ruin himself for every young woman clever enough to waken a crazy hope in his breast. Chateaubriand, who knew only too well what such suffering was like, left a terrible manuscript entitle Amour et Vieillesse; it is the long and grievous lament of a lover who does not know hot to grow old. "Those who have loved women a great deal will always love them; that is their punishment." And women who have loved many men are punished by hearing the younger among them say with genuine surprise: "I'm told she was once very beautiful."”

André Maurois

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

“To work is to transform or move things or creatures in ways that will render them more useful or more beautiful; it is also to study the laws governing these transformations, formulate them or apply them.”

André Maurois

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

“"Old age is a tyrant," said La Rochefoucauld, "who forbids indulgence in the pleasures of youth under penalty of death." First of all, those of love are prohibited. Old men and old women have the utmost difficulty in inspiring love, though they be full of spirit and vigor. When affairs of this sort do exist, it must be determined how great a part is played by respect, admiration, and abnegation.”

André Maurois

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

“"Teaching," wrote Alain, "must be determinedly slow in pace." This phrase is full of meaning for some modern educators with a dangerous tendency towards neglecting the ancient culture of the race, a necessary foundation for all education, and towards stressing recent doctrines and happenings. Information is not culture, and young men need culture much more than they need information.”

André Maurois

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

“A man who is trying sincerely to disentangle the web of human affairs is greatly helped by the nearness of a woman's mind, vigilant, clever, discreet, lucid, which lights up that shadowy half of his world: women's thoughts.”

André Maurois

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

“The true sporting spirit has always something religious about it.”

André Maurois

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

“Clearly, the central argument of the opponents to marriage is that it is an institution whose purpose is to stabilize something that cannot be stabilized, to make something last that will not last. All are agreed that physical love is as natural an instinct as huger or thirst, but the permanence of love is not instinctive. If, as is the case with so many men, physical love must have change, then why the promise of a life's devotion?”

André Maurois

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

“Pascal said that if geometry stirred us emotionally as much as politics we would not be able to expound it so well.”

André Maurois

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

“Well fitted for friendship is he whom men have not disgusted with mankind, and who, believing and knowing that there are a few noble men, a few great minds, a few delightful souls scattered through the crowd, never tires of searching for them, and loves them even before he has found them.”

André Maurois

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

“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.”

André Maurois

The Art of Writing

“Balzac says that many young husbands are so ignorant of women that they make him think of orang-outangs trying to play the violin.”

André Maurois

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

“Almost all the great novels 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 the truth.”

André Maurois

The Art of Writing

“The truth is that, from the immense spectacle of the world, each novelists retains the one adventure which enable shim to give expression to his own essential self, just as the painter sees in nature only pictures painted in his manner.”

André Maurois

The Art of Writing

“The whole reason of this War is because the Germans have no sense of humor.”

André Maurois

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

“Two world wars have destroyed in a few years the material and spiritual capital accumulated by centuries of work. The nineteenth century had hoped to turn man, by virtue of education, into a reasoning being: a half-century of ferocity has proved that a cruel, primitive beast still resides in him.”

André Maurois

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

“It is wrongly held by many that to be happy one must have the admiration and respect of a great many people; but the esteem of one's own circle is essential. Stéphane Mallarmé, deeply beloved by a few disciples, was far happier than a celebrated man who knows that his reputation is questioned by those whom he admires. The monastery had brought peace to innumerable souls through its singleness of thought and purpose.”

André Maurois

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

“No great amount of experience is required to discover that 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.”

André Maurois

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

“An efficient woman secretary is the perfect assistant. Her role is not confined to taking dictation and "tapping out" letters; she must also file letters and replies, memorize addresses, and turn herself into a walking index. She must possess all the virtues of a departmental head, as well as those of a woman. Being a woman, she has intuition; she can keep intact the self-esteem of her superiors, and she spreads and agreeable atmosphere about the office. At the same time she must not make her femininity obvious, for if one of her superiors should become too conscious of it, the work would suffer. A difficult balance, but one that can be maintained.”

André Maurois

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

“The best part of our misfortunes - our moral unhappiness, I mean - comes from the fact that we have words to describe them… We give them body, we even go so far as to give them a body which is not their own, for the words of common language do not always correspond to our sufferings, which may be of a new and distinct sort. … And then, too, words prolong and preserve sorrows that should long have been forgotten. Animal nature forgets….”

André Maurois

A Time for Silence

“England will pay ten thousand a year to a lawyer or a banker, but when she has splendid fellows like me who conquer empires and keep them for her, she only gives them just enough to keep their polo ponies.”

André Maurois

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

“Character is of the first importance, but intelligence is nevertheless essential. Ii is desirable for a leader to have a broad education. History and poetry increase his knowledge of human passions. Culture offers the man of action opportunities now and then to capture his serenity; it puts at his disposal models of order and clarity. It is, in a sense, a work of art to reconstruct a country or to lead an army, and the man who has acquired a sense of beauty from his studies will be the more successful for it.”

André Maurois

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

“It is often maintained that friendship between men and women can never approach the high level of friendship between men. How, it is objected, could sensuality not be present in such relationships? if it were not present, would not the least coquettish of women feel herself humiliated? It is contrary to every natural impulse for a man to associate with a woman as freely as is usual in friendship without occasionally being conscious of physical desire, and if he is conscious of it, the whole machinery of the passions is set in motion.”

André Maurois

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