ANDRE MAUROIS

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.

Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy person has no time to form.

Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul.

Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.

The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

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

We appreciate frankness from those who like us. Frankness from others is called insolence.

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.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

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.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author's life.

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

Modesty and unselfishness - these are the virtues which men praise - and pass by.

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

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.