Andre Maurois Quotes
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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.
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Sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond.
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It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently...
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Few are they who have never had a chance to achieve happiness- and fewer those who have taken that chance.
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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.
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Every ten years you should delete from your mind a few ideas that your experience has proven to be false.
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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.
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A great man's manias must be respected, because the time required to combat them is too precious to waste.
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To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.
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One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.
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Two human beings anchored to one another are like two ships shaken by waves; their carcases collide with one another and creak.
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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.
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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.
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Genius consists of equal parts of natural aptitude and hard work.
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It is often said that in prosperity we have many friends, but that we are usually neglected when things go badly. I disagree. Not only do malicious people flock about us in order to witness our ruin, but other unfortunates as well, who have been kept away by our happiness, and now feel close to us on account of our troubles.
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All of us, from time to time, need a plunge into freedom and novelty, after which routine and discipline will seem delightful by contrast.
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Woman's great strength lies in being late or absent. Presence immediately reveals the weak points of our beloved; when she is absent she become one of the sylph-like figures of our adolescence whom we endowed with perfection.
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The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.
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Happiness is never there to stay [...] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude.
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The minds of different generations are as impenetrable one by the other as are the monads of Leibniz.
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Happiness flourishes where there is happiness...
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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.
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Inspiration in matters of taste will not come twice.
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Housekeeping in common is for women the acid test.
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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...
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The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.
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The need to express one's self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action.
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[...] marriage is one thing, and love is another...You need to have a solid canvas; nobody stops you to weave the arabesques.
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Experience is valuable only when it has brought suffering and when the suffering has left its mark upon both body and mind.
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Novelty, the most potent of all attractions, is also the most perishable.
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