Nobel lecture (1978)
Context: Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him. In their despair a number of those who no longer have confidence in the leadership of our society look up to the writer, the master of words. They hope against hope that the man of talent and sensitivity can perhaps rescue civilization. Maybe there is a spark of the prophet in the artist after all.
“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
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André Maurois 202
French writer 1885–1967Related quotes
“Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.”
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 359
Sunni Hadith
Polyhymnia (1590), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).