W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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The novel may stimulate you to think. It may satisfy your aesthetic sense. It may arouse your moral emotions. But if it does not entertain you it is a bad novel.
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With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love without making a fool of himself.
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Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.
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Affection is created by habit, community of interests, convenience and the desire of companionship. It is a comfort rather than an exhilaration.
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He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.
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When a man's in love, he at once makes a pedestal of the Ten Commandments and stands on the top of them with his arms akimbo. When a woman's in love she doesn't care two straws for Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not.
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Our natural egoism leads us to judge people by their relations to ourselves. We want them to be certain things to us, and for us that is what they are; because the rest of them is no good to us, we ignore it.
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To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give... You will find that people forget the failures of others very quickly.... My last piece of advice is not to let anyone see your mortification, but whatever you fancy people are saying about you to go on with your ordinary life as though nothing unpleasant had happened to you.
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The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for life. Its aim is not beauty but goodness.
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I do not think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.
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I promised myself that if ever I had some money that I would savor a cigar each day after lunch and dinner. This is the only resolution of my youth that I have kept, and the only realized ambition which has not brought disillusion.
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It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly; he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service.
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Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.
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Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.
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In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces.
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It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me.
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I am afraid of people with too much charm. They devour you. In the end you are made a sacrifice to the exercise of their fascinating gift and their insincerity.
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She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?
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And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance.
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Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
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The audience is a very curious animal. It is shrewd rather than intelligent. Its mental capacity is less than that of its most intellectual members.
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There's nothing the world loves more than a ready-made description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves all trouble in future.
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Dying is the most hellishly boresome experience in the world! Particularly when it entails dying of 'natural causes'.
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For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.