Andre Maurois

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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