W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
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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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We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.
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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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There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment.
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It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
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I have always been convinced that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could save him.
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Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
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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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It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
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Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
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Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.
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The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
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There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.
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If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
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'You bloody fool, you've killed the wrong man.'
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The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
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He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.
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He loved her so passionately he wanted her to be one soul and one body with him; and he was conscious that here, with those deep roots attaching her to the native life, she would always keep something from him.
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In art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.
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Life isn't long enough for love and art.
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What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
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Don't you know? Because American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
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I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.