Quotes by Andre Maurois

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

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us.

Men fear silence as they fear solitude because both give them a glimpse of the terror of lifes nothingness.

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

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

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force.

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

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.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

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

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

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

People are what you make them. A scornful look turns into a complete fool a man of average intelligence. A contemptuous indifference turns into an enemy a woman who, well treated, might have been an angel.

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences.

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

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

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

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

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