W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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She had a very agreeable smile; it did not light up her face suddenly, but seemed rather to suffuse it by degrees with charm. It hesitated for a moment about her lips and then slowly travelled to those great shining eyes of hers and there softly lingered.
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Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
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We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
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The poignancy which all beauty has.
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An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
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I held my breath, for to me there is nothing more awe-inspiring than when a man discovers to you the nakedness of his soul.
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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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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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He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else.
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Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.
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... the Eternal turned his attention to the three shades who stood humbly and yet hopefully before him. The quick, with so short a time to live, when they talk of themselves, talk too much; but the dead, with eternity before them, are so verbose that only angels could listen to them with civility.
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It is very natural that clever young men should be rather odious. They are conscious of gifts that they do not know how to use. They are exasperated with the world that will not recognize their merit. They have something to give, and no hand is stretched out to receive it. They are impatient for the fame they regard as their due.
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She gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer. 'You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!'
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Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
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She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.
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Love is not always blind and there are few things that cause greater wretchedness than to love with all your heart someone who you know is unworthy of love.
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It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
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'I sometimes think,' said the Eternal, 'that the stars never shine more brightly than when reflected in the muddy waters of a wayside ditch.'
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It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
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We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
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There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain.
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D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
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When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
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Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.