Top 100 André Maurois Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization.”

— André Maurois

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

— André Maurois

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

— André Maurois

54. “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.”

— André Maurois

55. “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

56. “The longer the road to love, the keener is the pleasure.”

— André Maurois

57. “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.”

— André Maurois

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

— André Maurois

59. “A great statesman, like a good housekeeper, knows that cleaning has to be done every morning.”

— André Maurois

60. “Modesty and unselfishness – these are the virtues which men praise – and pass by.”

— André Maurois

61. “Almost all great writers have as their motif, more or less disguised, the passage from childhood to maturity, the clash between the thrill of expectation and the disillusioning knowledge of truth. ‘Lost Illusion’ is the undisclosed title of every novel.”

— André Maurois

62. “Experience is valuable only when it has brought suffering and when the suffering has left its mark upon both body and mind.”

— André Maurois

63. “Old age diminishes our strength; it takes away our pleasures one after the other; it withers the soul as well as the body; it renders adventure and friendship difficult; and finally it is shadowed by thoughts of death.”

— André Maurois

64. “The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.”

— André Maurois

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

— André Maurois

66. “When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself Americanised.”

— André Maurois

67. “To feminine eyes a man’s prestige, or his fame, envelops him in a luminous haze which obscures his faults. The triumphs of an aviator, an actor, a football player, an orator are often responsible for the beginning of a love affair.”

— André Maurois

68. “British conversation is like a game of cricket or a boxing match; personal allusions are forbidden like hitting below the belt, and anyone who loses his temper is disqualified.”

— André Maurois

69. “Our minds have unbelievable power over our bodies.”

— André Maurois

70. “If, in New York, you arrive late for an appointment, say, “I took a taxi”.”

— André Maurois

71. “We don’t love a woman for what she says, we like what she says because we love her.”

— André Maurois

72. “To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.”

— André Maurois

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

— André Maurois

74. “Medicine is a very old joke, but it still goes on.”

— André Maurois

75. “Information is not culture. In the mind of a truly educated person, facts are organized, and they make up a living world in the image of the world of reality.”

— André Maurois

76. “We console ourselves with several friends for not having found one real one.”

— André Maurois

77. “Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.”

— André Maurois

78. “If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper – and despise it.”

— André Maurois

79. “A great man’s manias must be respected, because the time required to combat them is too precious to waste.”

— André Maurois

80. “All of us, from time to time, need a plunge into freedom and novelty, after which routine and discipline will seem delightful by contrast.”

— André Maurois

81. “Every ten years you should delete from your mind a few ideas that your experience has proven to be false.”

— André Maurois

82. “The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life.”

— André Maurois

83. “Only passions can raise a man above the level of the animal.”

— André Maurois

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

— André Maurois

85. “What men call friendship is only social intercourse, an exchange of favours and good offices; it comes down to a commercial dealing in which self-esteem always expects to profit.”

— André Maurois

86. “Marriage makes a man more vulnerable by doubling the expanse of sail exposed to the tempests of social life.”

— André Maurois

87. “Live as if you were eternal.”

— André Maurois

88. “It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently.”

— André Maurois

89. “He loved books as other men love women, or opium, or tobacco: they were as a soothing drug to make him forget life.”

— André Maurois

90. “No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.”

— André Maurois

91. “It is not events and the things one sees and enjoys that produce happiness, but a state of mind which can endow events with its own quality, and we must hope for the duration of this state rather than the recurrence of pleasurable events.”

— André Maurois

92. “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.”

— André Maurois

93. “There are very few really brilliant men who have not had at least one madman among their ancestors.”

— André Maurois

94. “It is restful to leave one’s home; not because traveling does not entail varied and difficult daily actions, but because it removes our responsibilities.”

— André Maurois

95. “To desire to be perpetually in the society of a pretty woman until the end of one’s days, is as if, because one likes good wine, one wished always to have one’s mouth full of it.”

— André Maurois

96. “Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us.”

— André Maurois

97. “Happiness flourishes where there is happiness.”

— André Maurois

98. “I knew a man who had been virtually drowned and then revived. He said that his death had not been painful.”

— André Maurois

99. “If you create a character, you create a destiny.”

— André Maurois

100. “Housekeeping in common is for women the acid test.”

— André Maurois