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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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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Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
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Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
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Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
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Impropriety is the soul of wit.
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There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
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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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Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
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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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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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Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
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It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
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No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
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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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You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
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Have common sense and stick to the point.
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Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
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You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
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The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
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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.