Andre Maurois Quotes

Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

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.

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

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings.

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

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

The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why? Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.

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

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

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

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

We can talk frankly about our defects only to those who recognise our qualities.

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

The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it.

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

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.

You don't love a man for what he says, but love what he says because you love him.

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

Sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond.

Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record.

To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.

The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.

Stupidity is a factor to be reckoned with in human affairs. The true leader always expects to encounter it, and prepares to endure it patiently so long as it is normal stupidity. He knows that his ideas will be distorted, his orders carelessly executed; and that there will be jealousy among his assistants. He takes these inevitable phenomena into account, and instead of attempting to find men without faults, who are non-existent, he tries to make use of the best men at his disposal - as they are, and not as they ought to be.

It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently...