Andre Maurois

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

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

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

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

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

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

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