André Maurois - Art Quotes

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

André Maurois
To disgust men with their work is a serious blunder on the part of human society; what could be more natural than their liking for what they do? Work keeps off boredom, vice, and poverty. It is the remedy for all imagined evils. "The souls' joy lies in doing," said Shelly. Active work saves man from himself; indolence make shim a prey to useless regrets, dangerous reveries, enviousness, and hate. Also the first rule of the art of governing is, at all costs, to keep a nation at work. A bored nation is impossible to govern, but a nation occupied by work which it believes to be useful and accomplishes on its own initiative is already a happy one.

André Maurois
There is no permanent equilibrium in human affairs. Faith, wisdom, and art allow one to attain it for a time; then outside influences and the souls' passions destroy it, and one must climb the rock again in he same manner. This vacillation round a fixed point is life, and the certainty that such a point exists is happiness. As the most ardent love, of one analyses its separate moments, is made up of innumerable minute conflicts settled invariably by fidelity, so happiness, if one reduces it to its important elements, is made up of struggles and anguish, and always saved by hope.

André Maurois
A man's power and intelligence are limited. He who wants to do everything will never do anything. Only too well do we know those people of uncertain ability who say: "I could be a great musician."..."Business would be easy for me."..."I could surely make success in politics." We may be certain that they will always be amateur musicians, failures in business, and beaten politicians. Napoleon held that the art of war consisted of making oneself strongest at a certain point; in life we must choose a point of attack and concentrate our forces there. The choice of a career must not be left to chance.

André Maurois
In the case of a novel, or any imaginative work, especially if the tone is poetic, my own preference is for ending with a touch of symbolism which shall leave the reader brooding. A fine novel, a well-written story, "proves" nothing. Certain characters have played their parts, life goes on, and the final passage may be allowed to remain with one foot in the air, as is the case with some of Chopin's conclusions. But there is no absolute rule in such matters, and there are epic novelists who like to end on a powerful crescendo, as Ravel does in Bolero, or Dvorak in the New-World Symphony. Composition has features which are common to all the arts, and the author can learn as much about his business in the concert hall as in the library.

André Maurois
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.

André Maurois
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.

André Maurois
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.

André Maurois
Character is of the first importance, but intelligence is nevertheless essential. Ii is desirable for a leader to have a broad education. History and poetry increase his knowledge of human passions. Culture offers the man of action opportunities now and then to capture his serenity; it puts at his disposal models of order and clarity. It is, in a sense, a work of art to reconstruct a country or to lead an army, and the man who has acquired a sense of beauty from his studies will be the more successful for it.

André Maurois
The art of thinking is also the art of believing, because no human being at the present stage of civilization could safely call all his individual and social beliefs into question again or submit them to his conscience. To change all one's opinions is a mental diversion which requires leisure for its indulgence. In order to live a life of action, man must accept most of the moral, social, and religious laws which have been recognized as necessary by his predecessors.

André Maurois
Everything that tends to make it difficult to distinguish youth from age is an act of civilization. The best-mannered age in history invented the wig - a homage rendered by hair to baldness. The effect of powder and rouge is to make young women like their grandmothers, and invalids like healthy people. Clever dressmaking establishments and beauty shops create fashions which make it possible for elderly women to keep hoping. After a certain age, the art of dressing consists of hiding one's shortcomings, and this is another form of politeness. The veil is a marvelous invention for confusing the image and giving its wearers the semblance of beauty. All adornments are veils: they conceal the ravages of time as well as may be.

André Maurois
The art of resting is a part of the art of working. A man who is tired and greatly in need of rest cannot do any good work. We are all familiar with those terrible mornings after sleepless nights when our brains refuse to function. It would be useless then to attempt to apply the principles of the art of working. Those principles presuppose mind and body to be in good condition. The human organism cannot live without alternating work and rest.

André Maurois