W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
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Tolerance is another word for indifference.
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The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
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In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
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The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
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It was like making a blunder at a party; there was nothing to do about it, it was dreadfully mortifying, but it showed a lack of sense to ascribe too much importance to it.
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The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.
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Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.
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When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
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It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
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Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.
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Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
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Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
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The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
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Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
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It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
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Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
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He knew that women appreciated neither irony nor sarcasm, but simple jokes and funny stories. He was amply provided with both.
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I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
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Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.
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The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible.
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There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.
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The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
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We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.