W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
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When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
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Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
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Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
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There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
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Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
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Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
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There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
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One of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly.
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Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
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You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.
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When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.
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It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'
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Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
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What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
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Impropriety is the soul of wit.
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It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.
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If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
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It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
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The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
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Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
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In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
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It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
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A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.