W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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There is no need for the writer to eat a whole sheep to be able to tell you what mutton tastes like. It is enough if he eats a cutlet. But he should do that.
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Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil of the world? If the evils we suffer are the result of sins committed in our past lives, we can bear them with resignation and hope that if in this one we strive toward virtue out future lives will be less afflicted.
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Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened gives it a poignancy, touches a chord, which a piece of acknowledged fiction misses. It is to touch this chord that some authors have done everything they could to give you the impression that they are telling the plain truth.
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No woman is worth more than a fiver unless you're in love with her. Then she's worth all she costs you.
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You cannot write well or much (and I venture the opinion that you cannot write well unless you write much) unless you form a habit.
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Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
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In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four.
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It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.
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I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.
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She’s wonderful. Tell her I’ve never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you.” Waddington, smiling, translated the question. “She says I’m good.” “As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue,” Kitty mocked.
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Life is really very fantastic, and one has to have a peculiar sense of humour to see the fun of it. [Virtue]
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The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of thought; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
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Advice to first year medical students: In anatomy, it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.
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Art, if it is to be reckoned as one of the great values of life, must teach man humility, tolerance, wisdom and magnanimity. The value of art is not beauty, but right action.
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She says it's really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate.
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The mathematician who after seeing Phedre asked: 'Qu'est que ca prouve?' was not such a fool as he has been generally made out. No one has ever been able to explain why the Doric temple of Paestum is more beautiful than a glass of cold beer except by bringing in considerations that have nothing to do with beauty.
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The officers saluted as she passed and gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette. A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
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It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.
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Beauty is also a Gift of God, one of the most rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our pleasure.
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The nature of men and women - their essential nature – is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you.
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Some American delusions: 1) That there is no class-consciousness in the country. 2) That American coffee is good. 3) That Americans are business-like. 4) That Americans are highly-sexed and that redheads are more highly sexed than others.
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A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.
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When married people don't get on they can separate, but if they're not married it's impossible. It's a tie that only death can sever.
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As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.