W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from W. Somerset Maugham on Wise Famous Quotes.
... I do not mind odious young men; it is when they are charming that I button up the pockets of my sympathy.
A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her ... but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.
It's a very funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
When married people don't get on they can separate, but if they're not married it's impossible. It's a tie that only death can sever.
The fact was that he had ceased to believe not for this reason or the other, but because he had not the religious temperament.
PORTEOUS: Do you mean to say you were going to steal my car.
TEDDIE: Not exactly. I was only going to bolshevise it, so to speak.
TEDDIE: Not exactly. I was only going to bolshevise it, so to speak.
Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
Saw everything larger than life size, with the outlines blurred, in a golden mist of sentimentality.
But beauty is not the only thing that makes a woman attractive; indeed, great beauty is often somewhat chilling: you admire, but are not moved.
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.
And you call yourself an English gentleman,' she exclaimed, savagely.
'No, that's a thing I've never done in all my life.
'No, that's a thing I've never done in all my life.
But every well has a bottom and finally your friend will come to the end of what he has to tell you:
They had furtive eyes and weak chins. There was no wickedness in them, but only pettiness and vulgarity.
It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs.
Have some whiskey,there's nothing like it for clearing the head. You must expect to be thick-witted if you insist upon drinking beer.
He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
To the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
It has amazed me that the most incongruous traits should exist in the same person and, for all that, yield a plausible harmony.
It was a pity that with his great qualities, his unselfishness and honor, his intelligence and sensibility, he should be so unlovable.
Whenever he started a book with two solitary travellers riding along the brink of a desperate ravine he knew he was safe. The
I did not hesitate to put the question that came to the tip of my tongue. After all, if you want to know something the best way is to ask.
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
I should have known that I wasn't meant for happiness and a life of ease. I have other work to do in the world.
I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.
We were staggered and immediately on the defensive, for she looked intellectual, and it made us feel shy.
The audience is a very curious animal. It is shrewd rather than intelligent. Its mental capacity is less than that of its most intellectual members.
Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.
A good story is obviously a difficult thing to invent, but its difficulty is a poor reason for despising it.
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.
We are foolish and sentimental and melodramatic at twenty-five, but if we weren't perhaps we should be less wise at fifty.
They say that happy people have no history, and certainly a happy love has none. They did nothing all day long and yet the days seemed all too short.
As we know, Christian charity has always been able to make allowances for a lot of good honest hatred, ...
Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
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.
What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.