W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Quotes to Explore

• For me, the greatest good fortune I have being raised by actors is I came in knowing that a career is the ebb and flow.

  

  Laura Dern
  • Good
  • Career
  • Actors

• Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

  

  Karen Armstrong
  • People
  • Up
  • Religious

• Anyone can be a Superman, but nobody can be Jackie Chan.

  

  Jackie Chan
  • Superman
  • Nobody
  • Anyone

• We are a pluralist civilisation because we allow mosques to be built in our countries, and we are not going to stop simply because Christian missionaries are thrown into prison in Kabul. If we did so, we, too, would become Taliban.

  

  Umberto Eco
  • Stop
  • Christian
  • Going

• The bodies we have are not made for extended use. We must cope with accumulated DNA damage, cell damage, muscle atrophy, bone loss, decreased muscle mass, and joints worn out from overuse during a lifetime of bipedal locomotion. It might have worked great for prehistoric humans, but it wreaks havoc on our knees and hips.

  

  S. Jay Olshansky
  • Great
  • Loss
  • DNA

• Real tolerance means respecting other people even when they baffle you and you have no idea why they think what they think.

  

  G. Willow Wilson
  • People
  • Real
  • Why

• There's something unnatural about losing a sibling when they're young.

  

  Carlene Carter
  • Young
  • Losing
  • Sibling

• Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.

  

  Maggie Smith
  • Mind
  • Speak
  • Voice

• We're trying to create a better world, not a perfect one. It cannot ever be perfect.

  

  Kapil Sibal
  • World
  • Trying
  • Perfect

• All I can say is, I don't encourage younger kids to read my books, and actually, the biggest age group on my Facebook page is 25- to 35-year-old women.

  

  Abbi Glines
  • Women
  • Kids
  • Age

• Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.

  

  Napoleon Hill
  • Mind
  • Fear
  • Nothing

• What I've realized is that we're our own harshest critics. We give ourselves limitations. But I want to push through that wall, on a creative and personal level.

  

  Carla Gugino
  • Want
  • Wall
  • Creative

• I think being a mother helps keep your feet on the ground. There's very little dignity in parenthood. It's a great leveller.

  

  Frances O'Grady
  • Great
  • Mother
  • Feet

• No one is safe from religious ideas and confessional phenomena. Neither you nor I. We can fall victim to them when we least expect it. It's like Mao flu, or being struck by lightning. You're utterly helpless. Exposed. As I see it today, any relapse is utterly out of the question. But I can't say it's out of the question tomorrow.

  

  Ingmar Bergman
  • Today
  • Question
  • Fall

• We have always focused on degrees only. Now is the time to focus on skill development that will bring employment to our youth. If we have to compete with China then we have to focus on three things-skill, scale and speed. We need better skill, greater scale and faster speed.

  

  Narendra Modi
  • Time
  • Focus

• If you thought about it I'm hardly the villain, I'm hardly the one you should be scared of. It's the guy who can't talk, it's the guy without a job, it's the one with scares in his face, not the one clean cut, you know what I mean you should worry about a lot of other things, but not me.

  

  Tupac Shakur
  • Guy
  • Worry
  • Villain

• The saddest kind of sad is the sad that tries not to be sad. You know, when Sad tries to bite its lip and not cry and smile and go, 'No, I'm happy for you?' That's when it's really sad.

  

  John Mayer
  • Happy
  • Sad
  • Smile

• Apollo is the greatest adventure of all humankind, and it needs to be recorded in every way possible for future generations in books, in movies and on television. … I’m an artist. That’s the way I care about things. Maybe 200 years from now, someone will say, 'I’m glad he did that.'

  

  Alan Bean
  • Future
  • Adventure

• People think of teachers who are born to teach, and you think of all these charismatic folks. Some of the most successful teachers are some of the least charismatic, interestingly. But they have a gift of figuring out what motivates people.

  

  Wendy Kopp
  • People
  • Successful
  • Gift

• Romney economics would spell disaster for America's middle class. In this economy there are shipbuilders and ship wreckers.

  

  Martin O'Malley
  • America

• Listening is more than being quiet. Listening is much more than silence. Listening requires undivided attention. The time to listen is when someone needs to be heard. The time to deal with a person with a problem is when he has the problem. The time to listen is the time when our interest and love are vital to the one who seeks our ear, our heart, our help, and our empathy.

  

  Marvin J. Ashton
  • Time
  • Heart
  • Help

• Your artistry is a muscle that needs to be exercised, so if all you are doing is auditioning, you'll never get the satisfaction of fulfilling the need to play the part.

  

  Aja Naomi King

• I fear waking up one morning and finding out my life was all for nothing. We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark. When you're kind to someone in trouble, you hope they remember and are kind to someone else and so on. Soon it will be like a wildfire.

  

  Whoopi Goldberg
  • Remember
  • Morning
  • Reason

• I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham