"If you value a man's regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper - and despise it"
About this Quote
Affection, Maurois suggests, is cheap; esteem is forged under pressure. The first sentence is a provocation dressed up as advice: if you want to matter to someone serious, don’t angle for warmth, don’t beg for approval, don’t curate agreeableness. Strive with him. Compete, argue, test each other’s strengths. “Regard” here isn’t sentiment; it’s recognition. The line carries the slightly chilly realism of a European literary modernist watching how admiration actually circulates among adults: it sticks to those who resist, not those who yield.
Then he turns the knife with that newspaper comparison. “Liking” is reduced to a consumer habit: you “like” what you use, what arrives daily, what confirms your routine. And you despise it because it’s disposable, because you know it panders, because it’s replaceable tomorrow. Maurois is diagnosing a common emotional economy: we treat pleasantness as a service, then punish it for being a service. The subtext is gendered and social - “a man’s regard” implies a world of status, rivalry, and masculine codes where direct contest reads as respect, while friendliness reads as neediness or utility.
The quote works because it refuses the contemporary moral that harmony is the highest relational goal. It’s not saying conflict is good in itself; it’s saying authenticity and competence are legible in friction. Striving risks losing someone’s liking, but it’s the only move that can convert interaction into something sturdier than consumption: regard that can survive a bad headline.
Then he turns the knife with that newspaper comparison. “Liking” is reduced to a consumer habit: you “like” what you use, what arrives daily, what confirms your routine. And you despise it because it’s disposable, because you know it panders, because it’s replaceable tomorrow. Maurois is diagnosing a common emotional economy: we treat pleasantness as a service, then punish it for being a service. The subtext is gendered and social - “a man’s regard” implies a world of status, rivalry, and masculine codes where direct contest reads as respect, while friendliness reads as neediness or utility.
The quote works because it refuses the contemporary moral that harmony is the highest relational goal. It’s not saying conflict is good in itself; it’s saying authenticity and competence are legible in friction. Striving risks losing someone’s liking, but it’s the only move that can convert interaction into something sturdier than consumption: regard that can survive a bad headline.
Quote Details
| Topic | Respect |
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