W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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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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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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Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness. It lends grace to the sterner qualities of which this consists.
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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 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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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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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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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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But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.
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Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.
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The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.
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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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The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.
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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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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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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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Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
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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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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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It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind.
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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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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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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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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.