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 are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
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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 wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'
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There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
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Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
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Impropriety is the soul of wit.
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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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It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.
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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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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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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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We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us.
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For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.
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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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It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
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When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.
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You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
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It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.