André Maurois (1885–1967) pseudonym of Émile Herzog, was a French biographer, novelist, and essayist. He is best known for biographies that uphold the narrative interest of novels.
Born in Elbeuf to a well-to-do family of textile manufacturers from Alsace who settled in Normandy after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Maurois served as a liaison officer with the British army during World War I.
Maurois began his literary career with two books that launched his literary reputation: Les Silences du Colonel Bramble (1918; The Silences of Colonel Bramble) and Les Discours du Docteur O’Grady (1920; The Speeches of Dr O’Grady.) Drawing upon his experience with British troops during World War I, these books are celebrated for their smart and affectionate observation of the British character. A devoted anglophile, Maurois later produced Histoire d’Angleterre (1937.)
Maurois’s sizeable literary output includes such eminent biographies as Ariel (1923, on Percy Bysshe Shelley,) Disraeli (1927,) Voltaire (1935,) A la recherche de Marcel Proust (1949; In Search of Marcel Proust,) and La vie de Sir Alexander Fleming (1959; The Life of Sir Alexander Fleming, 1959.) He also wrote several novels, fantasies, tales for children, and critical and philosophical essays.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by 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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Leaders, Leadership
Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences.
—Andre Maurois
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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped on the material in hand.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Style
The first recipe for happiness is: Avoid too lengthy meditations on the past.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Past, Reflection, Happiness
He who wants to do everything will never do anything.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Goals, Aspirations
The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one’s opinion, but rather to know it.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Arguments, Argument, Self-Discovery
A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Marriage
A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Past
Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Conversation
Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Confidence
Few are they who have never had the chance to achieve happiness … and fewer those who have taken that chance.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Happiness, Perspective, Risk
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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Self-Discovery, Desire, Desires
Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Age, Aging
Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires
seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage.
—Andre Maurois
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.
—Andre Maurois
We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity—gunpowder and romantic love.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Invention
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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Character, Virtues
No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Originality, Innovation
Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Sympathy, Self-Pity, Hedonism
Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
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.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Age, Aging, Time
A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Love, Affection
A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Marriage, Crises
In literature, as in love, we are astonished at the choice made by other people.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Writing, Literature, Books
Modesty and unselfishness – these are virtues which men praise – and pass by.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Selfishness, Virtue
Business is a combination of war and sport.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Sports, Business
The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Authors & Writing, Fiction
The effectiveness of work increases according to a geometrical progression if there are no interruptions.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Focus, Concentration, Work, Jealousy
Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.
—Andre Maurois
Topics: Illusion
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Henri de Montherlant French Essayist, Novelist, Dramatist
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand French Writer, Statesman
Francois Mauriac French Novelist
Blaise Cendrars Swiss Poet, Writer
Hector Bianciotti French Novelist
Jules Verne French Novelist
Alfred de Musset French Poet, Playwright
Charles de Gaulle French General, Statesman
Milan Kundera Czech Novelist
Antoine de Saint-Exupery French Novelist, Aviator