Best 102 quotes of Andre Maurois on MyQuotes

Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.

Advice is always a confession.

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.

A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.

A great man's manias must be respected, because the time required to combat them is too precious to waste.

A great statesman, like a good housekeeper, knows that cleaning has to be done every morning.

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.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

All of us, from time to time, need a plunge into freedom and novelty, after which routine and discipline will seem delightful by contrast.

Almost all great writers 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 truth. 'Lost Illusion' is the undisclosed title of every novel.

A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.

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

Among the idle rich, boredom is one of the most common causes of unhappiness. People who have difficulty in earning their living may suffer greatly, but they are not bored. Wealthy men and women become bored when they depend upon the theater for their enjoyment instead of making their own lives interesting.

An old man, having retired from active life, regains the gaity and irresponsibility of childhood. He is ready to play, he cannot run with his son, but he can totter with his grandson. Our first and last steps have the same rhythm.

An unsatisfied woman requires luxury, but a woman who is in love with a man will lie on a board.

Artificial inflation of stocks must be considered a crime as serious as counterfeiting, which it closely resembles.

Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

A true woman loves a strong man because she knows his weaknesses. She protects as much as she is protected.

British conversation is like a game of cricket or a boxing match; personal allusions are forbidden like hitting below the belt, and anyone who loses his temper is disqualified.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

Either the soul is immortal and we shall not die, or it perishes with the flesh and we shall not know that we are dead. Live, then, as if you were eternal.

Every ten years you should delete from your mind a few ideas that your experience has proven to be false.

Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true; everything that is not puts us in a rage.

Experience is valuable only when it has brought suffering and when the suffering has left its mark upon both body and mind.

Few are they who have never had a chance to achieve happiness- and fewer those who have taken that chance.

For intelligent people, action often means escape from thought, but it is a reasonable and a wise escape.

Genius consists of equal parts of natural aptitude and hard work.

Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy person has no time to form.

He who has found a good wife has found great happiness, but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain.

Housekeeping in common is for women the acid test.

If, in New York, you arrive late for an appointment, say, "I took a taxi".

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

If you create a character, you create a destiny.

If you value a man's regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper - and despise it.

I knew a man who had been virtually drowned and then revived. He said that his death had not been painful.

In a discussion, the difficulty lies, not in being able to defend your opinion, but to know it.

Information is not culture. In the mind of a truly educated person, facts are organized, and they make up a living world in the image of the world of reality.

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

It is not events and the things one sees and enjoys that produce happiness, but a state of mind which can endow events with its own quality, and we must hope for the duration of this state rather than the recurrence of pleasurable events.

It is often said that in prosperity we have many friends, but that we are usually neglected when things go badly. I disagree. Not only do malicious people flock about us in order to witness our ruin, but other unfortunates as well, who have been kept away by our happiness, and now feel close to us on account of our troubles.

It is restful to leave one's home; not because traveling does not entail varied and difficult daily actions, but because it removes our responsibilities.

Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization.

Like a bird, when his cage is opened, stays on his perch, dazzled by freedom, the postponed traveler does not see that his cage, with its bars of anxiety, it is open.

Live as if you were eternal.

Love born of anxiety resembles a thorn shaped so that efforts to pull it out of one's flesh merely cause it to penetrate more deeply therein.

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.

[...] marriage is one thing, and love is another...You need to have a solid canvas; nobody stops you to weave the arabesques.