W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

W. Somerset Maugham

• Universe
• Evil
• Ignore

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Quotes to Explore

• I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.

  

  Orhan Pamuk
  • Done
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• Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world.

  

  Oliver Ellsworth
  • World
  • Good
  • Evil

• I've been quite fascinated by the relative insignificance of human existence, the shortness of life. We might as well be a letter in a word in a sentence on a page in a book in a library in a city in one country in this enormous universe! And that kind of fear and insignificance has kept me awake at night.

  

  Laura Marling
  • Life
  • Country
  • Book

• Scientists didn't discover the noble gas helium - the second most common element in the universe - on Earth until 1895. And they thought it existed in minute quantities only, until miners found a huge underground cache in Kansas in 1903.

  

  Sam Kean
  • Earth
  • Universe
  • Thought

• The kitchen is where we deal with the elements of the universe. It is where we come to understand our past and ourselves.

  

  Laura Esquivel
  • Past
  • Universe
  • Understand

• One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.

  

  Maimonides
  • World
  • Good
  • Bad

• Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and each makes incompatible claims about how we all must live.

  

  Sam Harris
  • People
  • Believe
  • Live

• It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • God
  • Universe
  • Imagination

• I used to think the press was a necessary evil and now I don't think it is. I think it's something you choose.

  

  Daniel Craig
  • Think
  • Evil
  • Choose

• Sometimes the right response to evil is an appeal to powerful and effective social organization - an appeal to civilization itself.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Evil
  • Powerful
  • Organization

• You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you'd have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.

  

  Karel Capek
  • World
  • Government
  • Universe

• To be more childlike, you don't have to give up being an adult. The fully integrated person is capable of being both an adult and a child simultaneously. Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.

  

  Wayne Dyer
  • Up
  • Universe
  • Wonder

• In every other science fiction series, humans are at the top of the food chain. In the 'Babylon 5' universe, they're in the bottom third.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Science
  • Food
  • Universe

• I was very clear that I wanted to keep 'Thor' out of the rest of the Marvel universe for no less than the first six issues. And the success of the book, I think, speaks well to that decision.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Book
  • Success
  • Universe

• So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.

  

  Rainer Werner Fassbinder
  • People
  • Good
  • Evil

• Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

  

  Galileo Galilei
  • Book
  • Universe
  • Language

• The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.

  

  Walt Whitman
  • Single
  • Universe
  • Theory

• At the end of the day, I'm not some evil guy.

  

  Thebe Neruda Kgositsile
  • Guy
  • Day
  • Evil

• Authors are free to ignore their editors' advice. I often avail myself of this veto power - sometimes out of a pigheadedness for which I'll pay the price.

  

  Lionel Shriver
  • Power
  • Free
  • Advice

• You often feel that your prayers scarcely reach the ceiling; but, oh, get into this humble spirit by considering how good the Lord is, and how evil you all are, and then prayer will mount on wings of faith to heaven.

  

  Charles Simeon
  • Good
  • Faith
  • Evil

• When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out 'stop!'When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

  

  Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht
  • Up
  • Stop
  • Fall

• Everybody always asks us how we choose the movies we have going right now, and it's hard to explain sometimes. There's a randomness to the way things kind of happen and get done. And sometimes you have this perfect storm, and you have to accept that and do the best you can.

  

  Kathleen Kennedy
  • Done
  • Perfect
  • Storm

• Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.

  

  John Stuart Mill
  • Society
  • Solitude
  • Aspirations

• There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham
  • Universe
  • Evil
  • Ignore