Andre Maurois quotes - Page : 3

" Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. " # Pettiness # Action # Love

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

" Style [Is] the hallmark of a temperament stamped on the material in hand. " # Style # Temperament # Critics and Criticism

" A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem. " # Biography # Poetry and Poets # Love

" 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. " # Character # Habit # Action

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

" The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions. " # Work # Progress # Writers and Writing

" The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it... I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent. " # Writers and Writing # Action # Love

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

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