André Maurois cytaty

strona 6

„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.”

“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.”

“The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not as a stumbling-block, as a confidant and not as a rival.”

“Incoherence is not the monopoly of madness: all the main ideas of a sane man are irrational erections build up, for better or worse, to express his deepest feelings.”

“It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently, and an overloaded curriculum is useless. The object of instruction is not to produce technicians, but good active minds.”

“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.”

“A father is rarely a good teacher; either he thinks he knows things and finds his knowledge to be very slight, or he knows but explains badly, or he is too severe and impatient because teaching bores him, or he is dangerously indulgent because he loves his children too much. It is from professional teachers who have made a success of the art that we must learn its rules. There can be no teaching without discipline. A pupil must first learn to work. Training of the will must precede that of the mind, and this is why home teaching is never very successful. Excuses are too easily accepted: the child has a headache; he has slept badly; there is a party somewhere. A school makes no compromise and that is its virtue. I am inclined to prefer the boarding-school system. It has some serious drawbacks; it sometimes produces immorality and it is always rather severe, but it makes men. The system forces boys to find their own places in a group; in a family they find these places ready-made and it is too easy for them. If absolutely necessary, and if the parents are judicious, day schools are satisfactory up to the age of fifteen or sixteen. For boys between the ages of seventeen and twenty, freedom in a large city is fatal.”

“…Sometimes with men, their pride can override their hearts…”

“Auguste Comte defines the feminine sex as the affective or emotional sex, and the male sex as the effective or active sex. This must be understood as meaning that with women there is a much close connection between mind and body. Woman's thought are less abstract than man's.”

“Only passions can raise a man above the level of the animal.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“Almost all men improve on acquaintance.”

“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.”

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

“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.”