W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.
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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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I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer.
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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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Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.
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Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs.
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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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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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Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
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A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community.
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The audience is not the least important actor in the play and if it will not do its allotted share the play falls to pieces.
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What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.
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I can only guess that it made the world he went back to...strangely without meaning. Though he lived in it, though he even enjoyed it, it remained utterly remote. I think it had lost sense for him. In his heart was the reflection of a lovely dream that he could never quite recall.
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I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to the universities go on a Government grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene ... They are scum.
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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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Women are strange little beasts,' he said to Dr. Coutras. 'You can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, it is one of the most absurd illusions of Christianity that they have souls.