André Maurois cytaty

strona 4

„Gdzie jest człowiek, który myśli to, co myśli?”

„Kobiety niczego by nie żądały, gdyby kochano je tak, jak pragną.”

„I kokietka może być zdolna do prawdziwej namiętności. Tylko, że nie w stosunku do tego samego mężczyzny, w tym rzecz.”

„Niesłusznie się mówi, że miłość jest ślepa – prawdą jest, że ma braki lub słabości, które widzi doskonale, miłość jest obojętna, jeśli sądzi, że znajduje w danej istocie to, co jest dla miłości najważniejsze, a co nieraz nie daje się określić.”

„Zwierzenia są jak kobiety: te, których mocno pragniemy uciekają od nas; te, których się obawiamy, narzucają się nam.”

„Podejrzenia założone w umyśle wybuchają jak miny łańcuchowe i niszczą miłość eksplozjami następującymi jedna po drugiej.”

„Nie piękno scenerii tworzy miłość, lecz miłość upiększa pejzaże i miasta.”

„Miłość rozbija okowy samotności.”

„Nawet odwzajemniona miłość jest straszliwa.”

„Miłość pomyślna, czyli taka, gdzie wszystko idzie możliwie, to rzecz trudna, ale miłość gdzie się nie wiedzie – to piekło.”

„Mężczyźni wyginęli. Od biedy można jeszcze znaleźć męża, ale mężczyzna mający czas dla kobiety i pragnący z nią rozmawiać – przestał istnieć.”

„Mężczyźni nie patrzą na suknie. Nie kocha się kobiety dla tego, co ma na sobie.”

„Kobiety lubią, by wiedziały, że są kochane.”

„Mężczyzna ambitny chce błyszczeć poprzez swe dzieła lub co najmniej w związku ze swymi dziełami. Kobieta szuka blasku, który mogłaby odbijać.”

„Nie kocha się kobiety za to, co ona mówi, lecz lubi się to, co ona mówi, ponieważ się ją kocha.”

„Handel jest złym doradcą dyplomatycznym.”

„Prześladowanie podsyca wiarę; tolerancja usypia ją.”

„Pretekst nigdy nie musi być prawdopodobny. Inaczej byłby racją.”

„Artysta podoba się publiczności zarówno dzięki swym dziełom, jak dzięki buntowi przeciw konwenansom.”

„Szczęśliwe małżeństwo – to długa rozmowa, która wciąż wydaje się za krótka.”

„Trup zgadza się być tym, czym jest. Ale tylko trup.”

„Rocznice były zawsze terenem bardzo podatnym do rozpalania namiętności.”

„Należy zawsze ukrywać to, co się czuje, by zachować to, co się kocha.”

„Zapewne życie jest krótkie, ale w stosunku do czego?”

„Z gustami literackimi jest po trosze jak z miłością: zdumiewa nas, co też to inni wybierają.”

„Człowieka zawsze kusi, by rozczulać się nad sobą i odmalowywać siebie takim, jakim by się chciało być.”

„Szczęśliwe małżeństwo to gmach, który odbudowywać trzeba co dzień.”

„W literaturze, podobnie jak w miłości, zdumiewa nas, co wybierają inni.”

„Ludzkość była zawsze podzielona, mniej więcej równo, na optymistów i pesymistów.”

„Wielka miłość nie wystarcza, żeby przywiązać istotę, którą się kocha, jeśli się nie potrafi jednocześnie wypełnić całego życia tamtej bez ustanku odnawianym bogactwem.”

„Łatwiej jest głosić pokój niż go zachować.”

„Wszystko, co zgadza się z naszymi życzeniami, jest prawdą. Wszystko inne doprowadza nas do wściekłości.”

„Miłość łatwiej znosi nieobecność lub śmierć niż zwątpienie lub zdradę.”

„Każde wielkie przeobrażenie społeczne ma swych teoretyków, którzy wymyślają przyczyny stałe dla wyjaśnienia skutków przejściowych.”

„Kiedy się kocha kobietę wszystko, co łączy się z jej obrazem, miłość nasza stroi w zalety i cnoty urojone.”

„Małżeństwo bez konfliktów jest prawie tak samo nie do pomyślenia jak społeczeństwo bez kryzysów.”

„Władza absolutna wywołuje u człowieka rozpętanie najgorszych instynktów.”

„W miłości kto nie pożera, sam jest pożerany, a jednak poddać się, szukać własnego szczęścia w szczęściu kogoś drugiego – to może być wyzwoleniem.”

„Jest coś jeszcze obrzydliwszego niż przekupny sędzia – sędzia żartowniś.”

„W niczym nie grzęźniesz łatwiej niż w powodzeniu.”

„Starzeć się to o tyle groźniejsze! Godzić się ze swoim losem, ze swym stanowiskiem, z tą psią budą wzniesioną nad jedynym przecie życiem… Kiedy jest się młodym, nie wie się, czym jest śmierć…”

„Młodość jest religią, z której prędzej czy później trzeba się w końcu nawrócić.”

„Droga Królewska wiodła już tylko ku szczątkom, jakie po sobie pozostawiają, niczym szkielety, wędrówki ludów i pochody wojsk.”

“It is often difficult to fill an active healthy man's leisure. He is bored when not working; he paces the floor like a caged animal and sinks naturally into vices which are merely the means of getting numberless vivid sensations from his body with which to fill his empty hours. Modern civilization, with its inventions and machines, has increased the number of these hours, and we must learn how to use them.”

“One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.”

“There must be no premature renunciation, physical or emotional. The heart, like the body, needs exercise. Naturally there can be no deliberate stirring up of emotion, but why, merely for reasons of age, should one deny oneself those that can be genuinely experienced? Because old men in love are ridiculous? They are ridiculous only if they forget that they are old men. There is nothing ridiculous about two old people really in love. Each still finds in the other those qualities which were admired in youth. Tender consideration, affection, and admiration have no age. In fact, it often happens that, when youth and its passions have vanished, love takes on an asceticism which is delightful. Sensual misunderstandings disappear with physical desire and jealousy with youth; impetuosity wanes with the body's strength. From the remnants of a stormy youth may be created an agreeable old age. Thus the existence of a couple resembles a river which leaps dangerously over jagged rocks near its source, but whose clear waters flow more slowly as it approaches the sea, its broad surface reflecting the poplars along its banks and the stars at night.”

“Reading, like all work, has its rules. A perfect knowledge of a few writers and a few subjects is more valuable than a superficial one of a great many. The fine points of a piece of writing are seldom apparent at first reading. In youth, one should search among books as one searches the world for friends, and once these friends are found, chosen, and adopted, one must go into retirement with them. Intimacy with Montaigne, Saint Simon, Retz, Balzac, or Proust would be enough to enrich one's whole life.”

“"Thinking is easy," said Goethe, "acting is difficult, and to put one's thought into action is the most difficult thing in the world." And Tolstoy: "It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writing than to put one principle into practice."”

“We are always repeating ancestral signs which are quite useless now. When a great actress wants to express hate she draws back her charming lips and shows her canine teeth, an unconscious sign of cannibalism. We shake hands with a friend to prevent him using it to strike us, and we take off our hats because our ancestors used to humbly offer their heads, to the bigwigs of those days, to be cut off.”

“Woman's great strength lies in being late or absent. Presence immediately reveals the weak points of our beloved; when she is absent she become one of the sylph-like figures of our adolescence whom we endowed with perfection.”

“Some people believe themselves to be independent of surrounding influences because their lives have made rebels of them. But rebellion is not a guarantee of independence. On the contrary, it is an acute form of prejudice. The writer who has been too much dominated in childhood will put himself forward as a free thinker in his attacks on religion and family life, but this revolt is the revolt of a slave.”

“We don't go to school to learn, but to be soaked in the prejudices of our class, without which we should be useless and unhappy.”

“The old writer, like the old actor, is a master of his craft. Youthfulness of style is no more than a matter of technique.”

“It was said of President Wilson that he had faith in humanity but distrusted all men. The true leader distrusts humanity but has faith in a few men.”

“Marriage is not something that can be accomplished all at once; it has to be constantly reaccomplished. A couple must never indulge in idle tranquility with the remark: "The game is won; let's relax." The game is never won. The chances of life are such that anything is possible. Remember what the dangers are for both sexes in middle age. A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.”

“To feminine eyes a man's prestige, or his fame, envelops him in a luminous haze which obscures his faults. The triumphs of an aviator, an actor, a football player, an orator are often responsible for the beginning of a love affair.”

“A married man is only half a man.”

“Men can usefully undertake and properly accomplish a common task only when one of them continually directs the activities of all towards the same end. This is self-evident when actions which must follow a rhythm are involved. It would be useless for a gang of men laying rails or a rowing-crew to exert themselves if a foreman or coxswain did not control their movements. Every non-directed collective action turns rapidly into confusion and disorder. All who have fought in a battle know how necessary it is that someone should be in command; and what is true of the army is true of the dockyard, the factory, the newspaper office, the whole country. Whenever men are required to act together, there must be a chief.”

“If you have observed nature, you would have proved that the question of the numbers of mates is certainly not a question of arithmetic. With gnats, ten females are born to one male. Now gnats are not polygamous. Nine out of those females dies spinsters. It is only the old maids who bite us, from which one sees that celibacy engenders ferocity among insects as well as among women.”

“I believe that communities which lack the feminine influence are apt to fall into abstraction and the madness of systems which, being false, require violence to put into practice. We have, alas, seen too many examples of this. A masculine civilization like that of ancient Greece perishes through politics, metaphysics, and vanity. Women alone can give these doctrinary drones a sense of the real and simple values of the hive. No true civilization is possible without the collaboration of the two sexes, but there can be no real collaboration unless the differences between the sexes are accepted and a mutual respect established.”

“We do not completely love those at whom we cannot smile. There is something inhuman in absolute perfection which overwhelms the mind and heart, which commands respect, but keeps friendship at a distance through discouragement and humiliation. We are always glad when a great man reassures us of his humanity by possessing a few peculiarities.”

“Nietzsche was a genius because he delighted in persecution. Karl Marx was a dangerous maniac. It is only when the feelings of discontent which he tries to explain coincide with those of a whole class, or a whole nation, that the impassioned theorist becomes a prophet, or a hero; while, if he confines himself to explaining that he would rather have been born an Emperor, they shut him up.”

“Agreeable men are those who are interested in everything; men who accomplish things, who finish their tasks, are those who, during a given period of time, interest themselves in one thing only. In America these men are said to possess "single-track minds"' their tenacity and their obsession are sometimes boring, but they succeed, by repeated attacks, in demolishing the obstacles that hinder their progress.”

“A man and a woman who, in their young days, agree to have done with sentimental life thereby renounce the search for adventure, the intoxication of new encounters, and the amazing refreshment produced by falling in love again. Their most vital source of energy is cut off; they are doomed to premature insensibility. Their life, scarcely begun, is finished. Nothing can break the monotony of an existence made up of burdens and duties. No further hope, no surprises, no conquests. Their one love will soon be tainted by the cares of housekeeping and the children's education. They will reach old age without ever having known the joys of youth. Marriage destroys romantic love which alone could justify it.”

“The head of a free nation's government must direct towards obscure and shifting objectives the actions of a group of people who are not compelled to obey him by anything except the fear of anarchy, which fear does not exist in times f social peace. He can do nothing without being criticized by opponents whose desire to put someone in his place makes them the more pitiless. His lieutenants are not respectful assistants; they are his equals and his eventual successors.”

“A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.”

“To desire to be perpetually in the society of a pretty woman until the end of one's days, is as if, because one likes good wine, one wished always to have one's mouth full of it.”

“As far as possible the duty of a leader is to foresee dissatisfaction and to remedy injustice before complaints are made. To accomplish this he must maintain close contact with the men he controls. Let him go into the trenches if he is a general; let him arrive at the factory with his workmen now and then if he is the manager. He must have some imagination; an understanding of other men's lives is necessary to him, so that he may be able to protect those under him from unnecessary suffering. The secret of gaining their affection is to feel affection for them and to be able to do their jobs as well as they do them themselves. Men endure taking orders, and even like it, if the orders are given intelligently.”

“Marriage is not at all what romantic lovers imagine it to be; it is an institution founded upon an instinct; to be successful, it requires not only physical attraction, but will-power, patience, and the always difficult acceptance of "the other"; finally, if these conditions are fulfilled, a beautiful and lasting affection can be established - a unique and, to those who have never known it, incomprehensible mingling of love, friendship, sensuality, and respect, without which there is no true marriage.”

“To interest a Frenchman in a boxing match you must tell him that his national honor is at stake. To interest an Englishman in a war you need only suggest that it is a kind of a boxing match. Tell us that the Hun is a barbarian, we agree politely, but tell us that he is a bad sportsman and you rouse the British Empire.”

“Our poor bodies have strength and resources that we learn to know only when we are in the gravest situations.”

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