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André Maurois Quotes
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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.
André Maurois
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Balzac has often provided us with the tragic spectacle of an old man in love. Obliged now to obtain with gifts and favors what his personal charm won for him in his earlier days, the aged lover will ruin himself for every young woman clever enough to waken a crazy hope in his breast. Chateaubriand, who knew only too well what such suffering was like, left a terrible manuscript entitle Amour et Vieillesse; it is the long and grievous lament of a lover who does not know hot to grow old. "Those who have loved women a great deal will always love them; that is their punishment." And women who have loved many men are punished by hearing the younger among them say with genuine surprise: "I'm told she was once very beautiful."
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Writing should never be allowed to become a substitute for living. Style cannot breath in a void. It should not be forgotten that Dickens was at one time a reporter, Balzac a lawyer's clerk and Tchekov a county doctor. Art is different from life but cannot exist without it.
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True friendship implies full confidence, which may only be completely given or completely withdrawn. If friendship has continually to be analyzed, nursed, and cured, it will cause more anguish than love itself, without having love's strength and its remedies. And if this confidence is ill-placed? Well - I would rather be betrayed by a false friend than deceive a true one.
André Maurois
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To reason with a poor language is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.
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There are more love marriages in the United States than in any other country, but Americans are also given to quick and frequent divorces.
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Dramatists have always made fun of the friendship between a husband and his wife's lover. But is it so comic? These two men undoubtedly have more to say to one another than the lover and his mistress. They get on perfectly well, and it is often the husband's presence that makes endurable the intolerable boredom of certain affairs of this sort. Cases have been known where a break occurred almost immediately following the husband's withdrawal from the scene.
André Maurois
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A leader should have a quick intelligence. Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late. Sometimes time is so important that it becomes the principal consideration.
André Maurois
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In restaurants, the duration of silence between couples is too often proportionate to the length of their life together.
André Maurois
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"Teaching," wrote Alain, "must be determinedly slow in pace." This phrase is full of meaning for some modern educators with a dangerous tendency towards neglecting the ancient culture of the race, a necessary foundation for all education, and towards stressing recent doctrines and happenings. Information is not culture, and young men need culture much more than they need information.
André Maurois
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An efficient woman secretary is the perfect assistant. Her role is not confined to taking dictation and "tapping out" letters; she must also file letters and replies, memorize addresses, and turn herself into a walking index. She must possess all the virtues of a departmental head, as well as those of a woman. Being a woman, she has intuition; she can keep intact the self-esteem of her superiors, and she spreads and agreeable atmosphere about the office. At the same time she must not make her femininity obvious, for if one of her superiors should become too conscious of it, the work would suffer. A difficult balance, but one that can be maintained.
André Maurois
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Balzac says that many young husbands are so ignorant of women that they make him think of orang-outangs trying to play the violin.
André Maurois
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In married conversation, as in surgery, the knife must be used with care.
André Maurois
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Modesty and unselfishness—these are virtues which men praise — and pass by.
André Maurois
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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.
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Well fitted for friendship is he whom men have not disgusted with mankind, and who, believing and knowing that there are a few noble men, a few great minds, a few delightful souls scattered through the crowd, never tires of searching for them, and loves them even before he has found them.
André Maurois
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Human beings are lazy and it very often happens that one wearies of a new-born emotion for no valid reason unless there is some restraint to stimulate and stabilize it.
André Maurois
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As far as possible the duty of a leader is to foresee dissatisfaction and to remedy injustice before complaints are made. To accomplish this he must maintain close contact with the men he controls. Let him go into the trenches if he is a general; let him arrive at the factory with his workmen now and then if he is the manager. He must have some imagination; an understanding of other men's lives is necessary to him, so that he may be able to protect those under him from unnecessary suffering. The secret of gaining their affection is to feel affection for them and to be able to do their jobs as well as they do them themselves. Men endure taking orders, and even like it, if the orders are given intelligently.
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Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us, that the most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.
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Incoherence is not the monopoly of madness: all the main ideas of a sane man are irrational erections build up, for better or worse, to express his deepest feelings.
André Maurois
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A great man's manias must be respected, because the time required to combat them is too precious to waste. A departmental head and his chief reach a state of symbiosis; the clever official knows that words must never be spoken in the chief's presence because they stir up painful complexes or rouse his anger. He knows how to present a proposition so that the chief will be interested and give a favorable opinion. He is clearly aware of the latter's mistakes and weaknesses, respects him no less for them, but he does his best to make up for deficiencies.
André Maurois
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The longer the road to love, the keener is the pleasure to be experienced by the sensitive lover.
André Maurois
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Must an artist live in the world or out of it? I believe this to be an unanswerable question. Total retirement, natural to the Saint, is injurious to most artists. They work marvelously so long as there are materials at hand. Goethe has further advice: "Solitude is a wonderful thing when one is at peace with oneself and when there is a definite task to be accomplished."
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The great classic writers, it will be said, sought rather to proclaim universal truths than to leave their imprint on them.
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A leader's intelligence must have simplicity and clarity; action is difficult when the mind is full of complex theories and schemes. An over-organized industry wastes just as much money as one without organization - the transmission uses up all the motor's power. (For this reason small enterprises directed by one man have the better of larger trusts because their costs are less and the quality of their product higher.) A leader must have a few very simple ideas, acquired from experience and confirmed by putting them into practice. This structure created by experience will contain much exact knowledge for use in connection with a given action.
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Quote of the day
Joy is like restless day; but peace divine Like quiet night; Lead me, O Lord, — till perfect Day shall shine Through Peace to Light.
Adelaide Anne Procter
André Maurois
Born:
July 26, 1885
Died:
October 9, 1967
(aged 82)
Bio:
André Maurois was a French author.
Known for:
The Silence of Colonel Bramble (1918)
Ariel; the life of Shelley (1924)
General Bramble
Bernard Quesnay (1921)
La vie de Disraëli (1927)
Most used words:
man
love
life
woman
time
work
women
people
happiness
friendship
human
art
marriage
young
difficult
André Maurois on Wikipedia
André Maurois works on Gutenberg Project
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