W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.
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I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit, I know you're a liar and a humbug, I know that you're utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is'--her face was on a sudden distraught with pain--'the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.
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Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...
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Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of them, and we hate those upon whom we have no such influence.
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I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.
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Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.
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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]
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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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There are many foolish people in the world and when a man in a rather high position puts on no frills, slaps them on the back, and tells them he'll do anything in the world for them, they are very likely to think him clever.
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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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But when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
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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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Things don't get any easier by putting them off.
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Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.
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The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain, just as the loveliest melodies are not too sublime to be expressed by notes.
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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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As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
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No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.
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The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.
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I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.
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She was making money. But she could not get over the idea that to earn her living was somewhat undignified, and she was inclined to remind you that she was a lady by birth.
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We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights.
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The Riviera isn't only a sunny place for shady people.
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There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed.