W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

You Europeans Know Nothing About America. Because We Amass Large Fortunes You Think We Care For Nothing But Money. We Are Nothing For It; The Moment We Have It We Spend It, Sometimes Well, Sometimes Ill, But We Spend It. Money Is Nothing To Us; It’s Merely The Symbol Of Success. We Are The Greatest Idealists In The World; I Happen To Think That 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.

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There Are Few Things So Pleasant As A Picnic Eaten In Perfect Comfort.

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People Do Tell A Writer Things That They Don’t Tell Others. I Don’t Know Why, Unless It Is That Having Read One Or Two Of His Books They Feel On Peculiarly Intimate Terms With Him; Or It May Be That They Dramatize Themselves And, Seeing Themselves As It Were As Characters In A Novel, Are Ready To Be As Open With Him As They Imagine The Characters Of His Invention Are.

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A God That Can Be Understood Is No God. Who Can Explain The Infinite In Words?

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When You Have Loved As She Has Loved, You Grow Old Beautifully.

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It Is Not Wealth One Asks For, But Just Enough To Preserve One’s Dignity, To Work Unhampered, To Be Generous, Frank And Independent.

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When I Read A Book I Seem To Read It With My Eyes Only, But Now And Then I Come Across A Passage, Perhaps Only A Phrase, Which Has A Meaning For Me, And It Becomes Part Of Me.

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I Daresay One Profits More By The Mistakes One Makes Off One’s Own Bat Than By Doing The Right Thing On Somebody’s Else Advice.

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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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One Cannot Find Peace In Work Or In Pleasure, In The World Or In A Convent, But Only In One’s Soul.

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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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You Learn More Quickly Under The Guidance Of Experienced Teachers. You Waste A Lot Of Time Going Down Blind Alleys If You Have No One To Lead You.

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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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If Nobody Spoke Unless He Had Something To Say, The Human Race Would Very Soon Lose The Use Of Speech.

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At A Dinner Party One Should Eat Wisely But Not Too Well, And Talk Well But Not Too Wisely.

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It’s Always Difficult To Make Conversation With A Drunk, And There’s No Denying It, The Sober Are At A Disadvantage With Him.

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The Fact That A Great Many People Believe Something Is No Guarantee Of Its Truth.

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Women Are Often Under The Impression That Men Are Much More Madly In Love With Them Than They Really Are.

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It Is A Funny Thing About Life; If You Refuse To Accept Anything But The Best, You Very Often Get It.

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There Are Three Rules For Writing The Novel. Unfortunately, No One Knows What They Are.

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There’s Always One Who Loves And One Who Lets Himself Be Loved.

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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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She Had A Pretty Gift For Quotation, Which Is A Serviceable Substitute For Wit.

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The Important Thing Was To Love Rather Than To Be Loved.

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Life Isn’t Long Enough For Love And Art.

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American Women Expect To Find In Their Husbands A Perfection That English Women Only Hope To Find In Their Butlers.

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Nothing In The World Is Permanent, And We’re Foolish When We Ask Anything To Last, But Surely We’re Still More Foolish Not To Take Delight In It While We Have It. If Change Is Of The Essence Of Existence One Would Have Thought It Only Sensible To Make It The Premise Of Our Philosophy.

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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.

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I Like Manual Labor. Whenever I’ve Got Waterlogged With Study, I’ve Taken A Spell Of It And Found It Spiritually Invigorating.

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I’m Not Only My Spirit Buy My Body, And Who Can Decide How Much I, My Individual Self, Am Conditioned By The Accident Of My Body? Would Byron Have Been Byron But For His Club Foot, Or Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky Without His Epilepsy?

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Remember That It Is Nothing To Do Your Duty, That Is Demanded Of You And Is No More Meritorious Than To Wash Your Hands When They Are Dirty; The Only Thing That Counts Is The Love Of Duty; When Love And Duty Are One, Then Grace Is In You And You Will Enjoy A Happiness Which Passes All Understanding.

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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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Sometimes People Carry To Such Perfection The Mask They Have Assumed That In Due Course They Actually Become The Person They Seem.

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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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Dying Is A Very Dull, Dreary Affair. And My Advice To You Is To Have Nothing Whatever To Do With It.

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Often The Best Way To Overcome Desire Is To Satisfy It.

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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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People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

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Money Is Like A Sixth Sense Without Which You Cannot Make A Complete Use Of The Other Five.

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Tao. Some Of Us Look For The Way In Opium And Some In God, Some Of Us In Whiskey And Some In Love. It Is All The Same Way And It Leads Nowhither.

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I Do Not Confer Praise Or Blame: I Accept. I Am The Measure Of All Things. I Am The Centre Of The World.

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A Mother Only Does Her Children Harm If She Makes Them The Only Concern Of Her Life.

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Life Wouldn’t Be Worth Living If I Worried Over The Future As Well As The Present.

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I Don’t Think Of The Past. The Only Thing That Matters Is The Everlasting Present.

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The Average American Can Get Into The Kingdom Of Heaven Much More Easily Than He Can Get Into The Boulevard St. Germain.

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A Man Ought To Work. That’s What He’s Here For. That’s How He Contributes To The Welfare Of The Community.

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The Dead Look So Terribly Dead When They’re Dead.

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When You’re Eighteen Your Emotions Are Violent, But They’re Not Durable.

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Perhaps The Most Important Use Of Money – It Saves Time. Life Is So Short, And There’s So Much To Do, One Can’t Afford To Waste A Minute; And Just Think How Much You Waste, For Instance, In Walking From Place To Place Instead Of Going By Bus And In Going By Bus Instead Of By Taxi.

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We Do Not Write Because We Want To; We Write Because We Have To.

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