W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Quotes to Explore

• I would just die if some little girl saw me jump into bed with someone in the movies, and then she did it and got AIDS and died.

  

  T'Keyah Crystal Keymah
  • Girl
  • Die
  • Movies

• A healthy economics has got to have both conceptual, theoretical research and applied, empirical research.

  

  Edmund Phelps
  • Healthy
  • Research
  • Economics

• More modern poetry is written than read.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Poetry
  • More
  • Modern

• Comparing in the past years, Tamyra Gray and everyone else that didn't win but their careers are doing well.

  

  LaToya London
  • Past
  • Doing
  • Win

• It's not any desire on my part to start playing dads, but it's a convention of drama. If you don't get the parts of young people going out to nightclubs, you have to play their fathers.

  

  Ian Hart
  • People
  • Desire
  • Play

• I find dates, in general, horrific. We have to sit there and ask these questions and pretend to eat a meal, and it just feels so stiff.

  

  Dakota Fanning
  • Find
  • Questions
  • Sit

• I've never experienced chronic pain myself, but I have known many people over the years who have.

  

  Naomi Judd
  • People
  • Pain
  • Myself

• I set myself one task, which was to get Labour on to the front foot, back in the game, making the weather on the economy, and that's going to take me a year.

  

  Ed Balls
  • Game
  • Myself
  • Year

• I don't know what the instinct is, to save every report card, every half-sentence scribbled note, but my mother did it pretty effectively, and I've done it to a fare-thee-well.

  

  Sally Mann
  • Done
  • Mother
  • Pretty

• You would never see me driving around in a sports car. I feel like you're so low and squish-able by transport trucks.

  

  Inga Cadranel
  • Sports
  • Car
  • Driving

• Leaving Egypt and the people I loved so much, and the environment I liked, was definitely worth it, because I also have great love for medicine and science.

  

  Magdi Yacoub
  • People
  • Great
  • Science

• All too often, the pitchmen are selling the notion that if you gain 'control' over your financial destiny - pick your own stocks and execute your own trades - it will be the first step on a short road to riches.

  

  Gary Weiss
  • Control
  • Road
  • Financial

• I don't like baseball movies. I like movies about moral courage and people who are indomitable and courageous and right.

  

  Harrison Ford
  • People
  • Moral
  • Courage

• I truly believe that you have to bring more content to the table to survive in radio than saying, 'There was AC/DC, and here's Journey,' because computers can do that.

  

  Eddie Trunk
  • Believe
  • Journey
  • Computers

• I started off in journalism 16 years ago in Stockholm, and I wrote for a few different publications for many years. I've also worked in advertising as a copywriter and creative director, but I changed it for architecture at 25 years old.

  

  Magnus Larsson
  • Different
  • Architecture
  • Advertising

• I used to wear miniskirts with my GB top, and sparkly sandals, and the boys would be like: 'Oh my gosh, this girl cannot be serious.'

  

  Victoria Pendleton
  • Girl
  • Like
  • Serious

• I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.

  

  Maggie Smith
  • Never
  • Hopeless
  • Bright

• I've always been more of a camera hog than anything, and it's just another way to get it all out!

  

  Carly Schroeder
  • Way
  • Always
  • Camera

• In my dreams, I have Keira Knightley's eyebrows.

  

  Anna Kendrick

• Atkins - I was on that for two weeks. All I lost was 14 days.

  

  Frank Vincent
  • Lost

• Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, 'Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,-Sleep before Death.'

  

  Plutarch
  • Death
  • Sleep
  • Brother

• After closely examining my conscience, I venture to state that in my historical novels I intended the content to be just as modern and up-to-date as in the contemporary ones.

  

  Lion Feuchtwanger
  • Up

• When I was coming up, everybody wanted to be Tom Hanks. There was always Robert De Niro and Al Pacino - they were the heavily dramatic stuff. I always had a foot in both camps. The hardest thing was to resist the advice to be like someone else. It took me a while to figure that out.

  

  John Slattery
  • Up
  • Advice

• But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham
  • Up
  • Criticism