W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
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There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
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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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There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
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The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
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Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
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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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I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the world.
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Impropriety is the soul of wit.
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You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
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Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
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No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
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Have common sense and stick to the point.
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It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
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It may be that if I lead the life I've planned for myself it may affect others; the effect may be no greater than the ripple caused by a stone thrown in a pond, but one ripple causes another.
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I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
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Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
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The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
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I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, or how much goodness in the reprobate.
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Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.
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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.
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Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.