W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...
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They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.
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Of course it was cause and effect, but in the necessity with which follows the other lay all tragedy of life.
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He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.
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When she liked anyone it was quite natural for her to go to bed with him. She never thought twice about it. It was not vice; it wasn't lasciviousness; it was her nature. She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others.
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I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
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The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of thought; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
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The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you.
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But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions.
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The first duty of a woman is to be pretty, the second is to be well-groomed, and the third is never to contradict.
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There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
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It has amazed me that the most incongruous traits should exist in the same person and, for all that, yield a plausible harmony.
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There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.
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Art... is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
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…the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
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Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.
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Culture is not just an ornament; it is the expression of a nation's character, and at the same time it is a powerful instrument to mould character. The end of culture is right living.
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Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.
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I thought I should be a fool to allow work to interfere with a delight in the passing moment that I might never enjoy again so fully.
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It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic.
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The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.
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I've met so many people, often the scum of the earth, and found them, you know, quite decent. I am an uncomfortable stranger to moral indignation.
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Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man who isn't quite so delightful but a little more sincere.
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Life is really very fantastic, and one has to have a peculiar sense of humour to see the fun of it. [Virtue]