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We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Tolerance is another word for indifference.
W. Somerset Maugham
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The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
W. Somerset Maugham -
It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.
W. Somerset Maugham -
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
W. Somerset Maugham -
The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
W. Somerset Maugham
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It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
W. Somerset Maugham -
In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
W. Somerset Maugham -
The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
W. Somerset Maugham
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It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
W. Somerset Maugham -
He knew that women appreciated neither irony nor sarcasm, but simple jokes and funny stories. He was amply provided with both.
W. Somerset Maugham -
I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
W. Somerset Maugham -
A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
W. Somerset Maugham -
Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.
W. Somerset Maugham
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There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.
W. Somerset Maugham -
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
W. Somerset Maugham -
I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.
W. Somerset Maugham -
We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
W. Somerset Maugham