André Maurois quotes - page 10

We don't love a woman for what she says, we like what she says because we love her. (André Maurois)
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. View quote
André Maurois
There are deserts in every life, and the desert must be depicted if we are to give a fair and complete idea of the country. View quote
André Maurois
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. View quote
André Maurois
If, in New York, you arrive late for an appointment, say, I took a taxi. View quote
André Maurois
The minds of different generations are as impenetrable one by the other as are the monads of Leibniz. View quote
André Maurois
A man's power and intelligence are limited. He who wants to do everything will never do anything. View quote
André Maurois
To amuse is not to teach. The object of teaching is to erect a framework of knowledge in a child's mind and gradually to bring the child as near as may be to the average level of intelligence. Later in life the facts taught by experience and new discoveries will add themselves to this framework. It is wrong to attempt to upset this natural order and to appeal to a child's mind by diverting it with the spectacle of modern life. Teaching by means of pictures, radio, and the cinema is in itself ineffective; these methods must not be used unless they involve (and this is possible) some effort or special enthusiasm. That which is learned without difficulty is soon forgotten, and for the same reason, oral instruction which does not require the pupil's personal participation is almost always rather useless. Eloquence slides in and out of young minds. To listen is not to work. View quote
André Maurois
An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along. View quote
André Maurois
The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves. View quote
André Maurois
Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading great authors by trying at the outset to imitate them by daring then to be original by destroying one's first productions. (André Maurois)
Borges creates, outside time and space, imaginary and symbolic worlds. It is a sign of his importance that, in placing him, only strange and perfect works can be called to mind. He is akin to Kafka, Poe, sometimes to Henry James and Wells, always to Valery by the abrupt projection of his paradoxes in what has been called "his private metaphysics.”. View quote
André Maurois
What shall we know of our death? 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, and do not believe that your life has changed merely because it seems proved that the Earth is empty. You do not live in the Earth, you live in yourself. View quote
André Maurois