Few are they who have never had the chance to achieve happiness … and fewer those who have taken that chance.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Perspective, Risk, Happiness
Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped on the material in hand.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Style
A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: 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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Virtues, Character
A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Marriage, Crises
He who wants to do everything will never do anything.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Goals, Aspirations
Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Conversation
A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Marriage
Business is a combination of war and sport.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Sports, Business
Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Aging, Age
Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Confidence
Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Legacy, Biography
The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Fiction, Authors & Writing
A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Love, Affection
The first recipe for happiness is: Avoid too lengthy meditations on the past.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Happiness, Past, Reflection
Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences.
—Andre Maurois
Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Self-Pity, Sympathy, Hedonism
Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Age, Time, Aging
The effectiveness of work increases according to a geometrical progression if there are no interruptions.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Work, Focus, Concentration, Jealousy
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.
—Andre Maurois
Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires
seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage.
—Andre Maurois
A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Marriage
Modesty and unselfishness – these are virtues which men praise – and pass by.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Virtue, Selfishness
No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Originality, Innovation
Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Illusion
To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Humor, Wit
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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Desire, Self-Discovery, Desires
In literature, as in love, we are astonished at the choice made by other people.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Literature, Writing, Books
We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity—gunpowder and romantic love.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Invention
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Henri de Montherlant French Essayist, Novelist, Dramatist
- Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand French Writer, Statesman
- Francois Mauriac French Novelist
- Blaise Cendrars Swiss Poet, Writer
- Hector Bianciotti French Novelist
- Jules Verne French Novelist
- Alfred de Musset French Poet, Playwright
- Charles de Gaulle French General, Statesman
- Milan Kundera Czech Novelist
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery French Novelist, Aviator
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