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Quotes from Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) — André Maurois

1885–1967 France

← All quotes by André Maurois

22 quotes

There are very few really brilliant men who have not had at least one madman among their ancestors.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

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

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

A married man seeks to please his wife and not God.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

The true sporting spirit has always something religious about it.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

"Dr. Johnson was right," said the colonel to me, "Whoever wants to be a hero ought to drink brandy."

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

The whole reason of this War is because the Germans have no sense of humor.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

Medicine is a very old joke, but it still goes on.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

British conversation is like a game of cricket or a boxing match; personal allusions are forbidden like hitting below the belt, and anyone who loses his temper is disqualified.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

We don't go to school to learn, but to be soaked in the prejudices of our class, without which we should be useless and unhappy.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

"'He who has found a good wife has found great happiness'", quoted the padre, "'but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain.'"

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

Incoherence is not the monopoly of madness: all the main ideas of a sane man are irrational erections build up, for better or worse, to express his deepest feelings.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

It is unprecedented...for the men who made a revolution to remain in power after it is over. Yet one still finds revolutionaries: that proves how badly history is taught.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

The love of humanity is a pathological state of a sexual origin which often appears at the age of puberty in nervous and clever people. The excess of phosphorus in the system must get out somewhere.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

A married man is only half a man.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

A gentleman is never in a hurry.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

To desire to be perpetually in the society of a pretty woman until the end of one's days, is as if, because one likes good wine, one wished always to have one's mouth full of it.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

Telephones are like women. No one really knows anything about them. One fine day, something goes wrong; you try to find out why, no good, you swear, you shake them up a bit and all is well.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

The officer of to-day has seen active service, it's true but as a matter of fact it is quite sufficient in war to have good health and no more imagination than a fish. It is in peace-time that one ought to judge a soldier.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

If you want to be thought anything of amongst Englishmen, you must make yourself see their point of view. They don't care for melancholy people, and have a contempt for sentiment. This applies to love as well as to patriotism and religion.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

England will pay ten thousand a year to a lawyer or a banker, but when she has splendid fellows like me who conquer empires and keep them for her, she only gives them just enough to keep their polo ponies.

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: André Maurois (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.