Somerset Maugham Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Somerset Maugham

Somerset Maugham Quotes & Sayings

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I do not know if others are like myself, but I am conscious that I cannot contemplate beauty long. — W. Somerset Maugham

It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one's own absurdity. LXXX — W. Somerset Maugham

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it. — W. Somerset Maugham

Tolerance is another word for indifference. — W. Somerset Maugham

Make him laugh and he will think you a trivial fellow, but bore him in the right way and your reputation is assured. — W. Somerset Maugham

... I do not mind odious young men; it is when they are charming that I button up the pockets of my sympathy. — W. Somerset Maugham

To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day. — W. Somerset Maugham

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally. — W. Somerset Maugham

Mighty is he who conquers himself — W. Somerset Maugham

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner. — W. Somerset Maugham

She did not know why it seemed to her so tragic to cry in her sleep. — W. Somerset Maugham

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less. — W. Somerset Maugham

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties. — W. Somerset Maugham

I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the center of the world. — W. Somerset Maugham

The soft airs of spring blew through the sketch into that sordid chamber, and for the beating of a pulse you were in touch with the eternal — W. Somerset Maugham

Life isn't long enough for love and art. — W. Somerset Maugham

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. — W. Somerset Maugham

It is very hard for a man, however modest, to grasp the possibility that a woman who has once loved him may love him no longer ... — W. Somerset Maugham

Clearly much that seemed valid seemed so only because he had been taught it from earliest youth. — W. Somerset Maugham

Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your father's steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left. — W. Somerset Maugham

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times. — W. Somerset Maugham

The first duty of a woman is to be pretty, the second is to be well-groomed, and the third is never to contradict. — W. Somerset Maugham

The great have no friends, dear Blasco. It is the price they must pay for their greatness. — W. Somerset Maugham

Some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. — W. Somerset Maugham

They threw this eager vitality of theirs into a vehement striving after the ineffable. — W. Somerset Maugham

I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them. — W. Somerset Maugham

Dying is a dull, dreary affair. my advice is that you have nothing whatever to with it. — W. Somerset Maugham

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge. — W. Somerset Maugham

Its a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, few are chosen. — W. Somerset Maugham

A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence. — W. Somerset Maugham

His death had been as futile as his life. He died ingloriously, of a stupid disease, failing once more, even at the end, to accomplish anything. — W. Somerset Maugham

The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable. — W. Somerset Maugham

It was such a lovely day I thought it was a pity to get up. — W. Somerset Maugham

Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average. — W. Somerset Maugham

Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning. — W. Somerset Maugham

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. — W. Somerset Maugham

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully. — W. Somerset Maugham

Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband. — W. Somerset Maugham

One could reconcile oneself to existence only because it was meaningless. It — W. Somerset Maugham

From the standpoint of what eternity is it better to have read a thousand books than to have ploughed a million furrows? — W. Somerset Maugham

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young. — W. Somerset Maugham

From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him. — W. Somerset Maugham

It takes two to make a love affair and a mans meat is too often a woman's poison. — W. Somerset Maugham

Is it rash to assume that when a practised writer says a thing, he is more likely to mean what he says than what his commentators think he means? — W. Somerset Maugham

There is a certain elegance in wasting time. Any fool can waste money, but when you waste time you waste what is priceless. — W. Somerset Maugham

I never knew her more than slightly and she was a woman who kept herself to herself. — W. Somerset Maugham

Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant. — W. Somerset Maugham

The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible. — W. Somerset Maugham

Success. I don't believe it has any effect on me. For one thing I always expected it. — W. Somerset Maugham

Only the poet or the saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will reward his labour. — W. Somerset Maugham

It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is. — W. Somerset Maugham

An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything. — W. Somerset Maugham

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance. — W. Somerset Maugham

The fact is, I suppose, that it's not enough to have brains. The thing that counts is character. — W. Somerset Maugham

I would sooner a writer were vulgar than mincing; for life is vulgar, and it is life he seeks. — W. Somerset Maugham

A virtue that only causes havoc and unhappiness is worth nothing. You can call it virtue if you like. I call it cowardice. — W. Somerset Maugham

I happen to think we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection. — W. Somerset Maugham

I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God. — W. Somerset Maugham

To me he seemed one of those persons destined to failure of whom you wonder what purpose it can ever serve that they should have ben born. — W. Somerset Maugham

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. - SOMERSET MAUGHAM — Sarah Ban Breathnach

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned. It — W. Somerset Maugham

I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists. — W. Somerset Maugham

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother. — W. Somerset Maugham

What do you value in life then?"
"I'm afraid you'll laugh at me. Beauty, truth, and goodness. — W. Somerset Maugham

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby. — W. Somerset Maugham

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. — W. Somerset Maugham

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind. — W. Somerset Maugham

The great trues are too important to be new. — W. Somerset Maugham

The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned — W. Somerset Maugham

She had in point of fact by now made up her mind to accept it, but she well knew that men like to think they decide matters for themselves. — W. Somerset Maugham

There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved. — W. Somerset Maugham

It speaks very well for human nature that with the masses of dear friends we have it's only to-day that one of them broke the news to us. — W. Somerset Maugham

It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories. — W. Somerset Maugham

We are foolish and sentimental and melodramatic at twenty-five, but if we weren't perhaps we should be less wise at fifty. — W. Somerset Maugham

Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?"
"No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself. — W. Somerset Maugham

Enjoy yourself while you have the chance, I say; we shall all be dead in a hundred years and what will anything matter then? — W. Somerset Maugham

No one any good you be sure,' said Mrs. Kemp. 'I can't swaller these new people as are comin' in; the street ain't wot it was when I fust come.' When — W. Somerset Maugham

No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman. — W. Somerset Maugham

Man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than to learn the multiplication table. — W. Somerset Maugham

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress. — W. Somerset Maugham

S the cosmos are in place, so be it with your life ... — W. Somerset Maugham

What mean and cruel things men do for the love of God. — W. Somerset Maugham

A true story is never quite so true as an invented one. — W. Somerset Maugham

He lit his pipe again, smiling to himself quietly, with that painful smile of his, as though he were enjoying a joke that hurt him. — W. Somerset Maugham

And then he felt the misery of his life. — W. Somerset Maugham

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself. — W. Somerset Maugham

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation. — W. Somerset Maugham

Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist. — W. Somerset Maugham

And he loved her suddenly because she loved him. — W. Somerset Maugham

There's nothing the world loves more than a ready-made description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves all trouble in future. — W. Somerset Maugham

The Magus,the sorcerer, the alchemist, are seized with the fascination of the unknown; and they desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind. — W. Somerset Maugham

A state of reverie does not avoid reality, it accedes to reality. — W. Somerset Maugham

And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance. — W. Somerset Maugham

All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary - it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences. — W. Somerset Maugham

No egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul. — W. Somerset Maugham

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror. — W. Somerset Maugham

Her painting was vaporous and unsubstantial, but it had a flowerlike grace and even a certain careless elegance. There — W. Somerset Maugham

Dying is the most hellishly boresome experience in the world! Particularly when it entails dying of 'natural causes'. — W. Somerset Maugham

Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake. — W. Somerset Maugham

It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body. — W. Somerset Maugham