W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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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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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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Passion doesn't count the cost. … Passion is destructive.
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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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Tahiti is very far away, and I knew that I should never see it again. A chapter of my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer to inevitable death.
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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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Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.
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The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life worth living.
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The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil. It is the sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.
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An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
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You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
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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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She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.
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Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.
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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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He had doubts about the utility of examination on subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense.
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There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.
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You will have to learn many tedious things,...which you will forget the moment you have passed your final examination, but in anatomy it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.
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He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
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When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
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Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...
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The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
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I am a little shy of any assumption of moral indignation. There is always in it an element of self-satisfaction which makes it awkward to anyone who has a sense of humour.