"A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection."

Maurois, Andre on Affection
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"Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form."

Maurois, Andre on Age and Aging
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"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."

Maurois, Andre on Age and Aging
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"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."

Maurois, Andre on Desire
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"The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author's life."

Maurois, Andre on Fiction
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"Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences."

Maurois, Andre on Infidelity
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"We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity -- gunpowder and romantic love."

Maurois, Andre on Invention and Inventor
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"The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such."

Maurois, Andre on Leaders and Leadership
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"The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion, but rather to know it."

Maurois, Andre on Argument
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"In literature, as in love, we are astonished at the choice made by other people."

Maurois, Andre on Literature
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"A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day."

Maurois, Andre on Marriage
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"A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises."

Maurois, Andre on Marriage
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"A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short."

Maurois, Andre on Marriage
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"No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity."

Maurois, Andre on Originality
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"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."

Maurois, Andre on Pettiness
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"Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool."

Maurois, Andre on Pity
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"Style [Is] the hallmark of a temperament stamped on the material in hand."

Maurois, Andre on Style
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"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."

Maurois, Andre on Biography
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"Business is a combination of war and sport."

Maurois, Andre on Business
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"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."

Maurois, Andre on Character
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"To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it."

Maurois, Andre on Wit
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"The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions."

Maurois, Andre on Work
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"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."

Maurois, Andre on Writers and Writing
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"Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them."

Maurois, Andre on Confidence
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"Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know."

Maurois, Andre on Conversation
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