André Maurois: Use

André Maurois was French writer. Explore interesting quotes on use.

André Maurois: 404 quotes4 likes

“The dead are friends whom death is powerless to take from us. Great writers are immortal companions who can embellish our old age as they enchanted our young days. Music, too, is an extraordinarily faithful friend. To those of us who have lost our faith in human nature, it offers refuge in other pleasant worlds.”

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

“There is not one who speaks of us in our presence as he does in our absence," wrote Pascal. "All affection is based on this mutual deception, and few friendships would survive if we knew what our friends were saying of us behind our backs.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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.”

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

“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."”

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.”

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

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

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