W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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The poignancy which all beauty has.
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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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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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We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.
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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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Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
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Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love...
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What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
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We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
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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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It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.
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People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
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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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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 is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
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Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
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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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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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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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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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He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he knew that she was still a stranger to him and his hungry love was destined ever to remain unsatisfied.
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Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
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Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
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Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...