Andre Maurois Quotes

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.

Live as if you were eternal.

The art of reading is in great part that of acquiring a better understanding of life from one's encounter with it in a book.

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

The minds of different generations are as impenetrable one by the other as are the monads of Leibniz.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

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.

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.

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

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

Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand.

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.

When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself Americanised

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

Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves; their carcases collide with one another and creak.

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.

Happiness is never there to stay [...] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude.

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.

The need to express one's self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action.

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it... I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent.

Inspiration in matters of taste will not come twice.

Housekeeping in common is for women the acid test.