From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
W. Somerset Maugham
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES We had every kind of audience you could name. Young, old, not-so-old, some older than old, some youn... JOHN HUNTER When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it ea... JULIAN BARNES Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is ... ERNEST HEMINGWAY Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined ... ANDRE GIDE That's the duty of the old,' said the Librarian, 'to be anxious on the behalf of the young. And the ... PHILIP PULLMAN Khalid would break every bone in your body for what you've done. RENEE AHDIEH He remembered the time he had hooked one of a pair of marlin. The male fish always let the female fi... ERNEST HEMINGWAY The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered. LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH All evil comes from the old. They grow fat on ideas and young men die of them. JEAN ANOUILH Old man wiser than young man PALITHA ARIYARATHNA Reasons... questions... what they have in common? - All get finded in the hard way. DEYTH BANGER Young people tell what they are doing, old people what they have done and fools what they wish to do FRENCH PROVERB But this too is true: stories can save us. TIM O'BRIEN She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fasc... TOVE JANSSON They're moving into Massachusetts, but they're too young, too immature to give birth. They are betwe... GREG SKOMAL Children suck the mother when they are young and the father when they are old. ENGLISH PROVERB I'm a golfer - not an athlete. LEE WESTWOOD ...but more often he would be alone, feeling through a certain quick instinct, which was almost a di... OSCAR WILDE You think it horrible that lust and rageShould dance attendance upon my old age;They were not such a... WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS We have tears in our eyes As we wave our goodbyes, We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL We kind of fought that one out last year. It was on for young and old a bit. But Southern Cross is p... MIKE CARLTON We all have an old house because of the things we have done in the past.We also have ghosts haunting... GARY F EVANS... Young people talk of what they are doing; old people of what they have done; and fools of what they ... PROVERB The comfort zone is always the most desirable place to be. But in settling for comfort, there is a p... SIMON BARNES TWENTY bridges from Tower to Kew - Wanted to know what the River knew, Twenty Bridges or ... RUDYARD KIPLING They have a good team. They are a different team. The trades they made have worked out for them. Eve... DALE HUNTER …he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered. He wanted her to be a... TIM O'BRIEN Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be ... J.K. ROWLING Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be ... J. K. ROWLING They were young; time hadn't yet rubbed at them, polishing their differences and sharpening their op... KATE MORTON Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young, The young are beautiful—but the old are m... WALT WHITMAN For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
The hearts of you... HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Now they have a riddle. - Criminal Minds DEYTH BANGER Pain has creative power, Let the magic unfold... HENNA SOHAIL Tipsy, they tumbled early into bed - to get as much sleep as they could. So they would feel less hun... YEVGENY ZAMYATIN This is the earliest use of maize in this region of the Andes. We have good evidence they were growi... LINDA PERRY Youth can not know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be... J.K. ROWLING Unfortunately, the young generation, who I believe have their own place in the sun like I had mine; ... RUTH BROWN Years ago we discovered the exact point the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too yo... FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too y... FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS These stories were very old, as old as people, and they had survived because they were very powerful... JOHN CONNOLLY We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The ol... SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The ol... WINSTON CHURCHILL The world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men ... ROBERTSON DAVIES When people don't like you... you feel it. They don't pay attention at you... they some kind a ignor... DEYTH BANGER Millions of people acknowledge today that they do not know the meaning of life. JAMES C. DOBSON I look back at James one last time, and he gives me his signature smile, wide and cocky. but it's no... SUZANNE YOUNG They were so young and so fatalistic. They were caught up in this thing that was bigger than they we... SCOTT DALTON I certainly listen to my old songs from time to time and I hear the roots of what I'm doing today. B... COREY HART 28. Feelings are neither right nor wrong. It's what you do with them that causes the problems. JAMES C. DOBSON It is pointless to believe what you see, if you only see what you believe. MARIE LU It was as simple as this: The Kennedys had a feeling of being heightened and it rubbed off on the pe... CHARLES SPALDING My fan base is really, really young. They're the youngest demographic that you can track on YouT... ROSANNA PANSINO don’t say you’se ole. You’se uh lil girl baby all de time. God made it so you spent yo’ ole ... ZORA NEALE HURSTON His angry expression softens, and then he shoves my shoulder playfully. "Hey!" I push him back... SUZANNE YOUNG We are drawn to stories,” he says in a soft voice, “and every scar carries one. MARIE LU Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be... ERNEST HEMINGWAY I'm convinced normal people miss the majority of God's blessings because they're too busy to notice ... CRAIG GROESCHEL It was because they were two parts of a whole. He did not belong to her. And she did not belong to h... RENEE AHDIEH Cease with the displays of false modesty. The entire palace knows about it." A feeling of warmt... RENEE AHDIEH Do you know why I adore roses?" Shahrzad untied the knot of his tikka sash with deliberate slowness.... RENEE AHDIEH Where were you?" Shahrzad tried to control the tremor in her voice. "Not where I should have b... RENEE AHDIEH As always. As ever. As a rose to the sun. RENEE AHDIEH Old Camels carry young Camels skins to the Market. GEORGE HERBERT Is there some lesson on how to be friends? I think what it means is that central to living DAVID RAKOFF She had this old tin bathtub that you can carry around, that they used to use before indoor plumbing... JOYCE JACKSON I didn't know how to explain to him that for all that I still looked young, I had been feeling old. ... CHRISTINA HENRY We've got a good mix of young and old. When older guys feel it after three games in three nights, th... NICK VITUCCI The old think the young are lazy and entitled. The young think the old are incompetent and inefficie... JOANIE CONNELL The warm sound of her laughter stole through Khalid's skin, heating the coldest reaches of his soul. RENEE AHDIEH You learned right away that applause sounds like love. AVA DELLAIRA Young men speak about the future because they have no past, and old men speak of the past because th... BOYD K. PACKER They had food fights all the time, they were three young guys in a van, for the first time.going acr... SHAWN ASHMORE How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young... OSCAR WILDE Cal had told her all girls had it, it was natural as breathing, it was a sign they were growing up, ... HARPER LEE Everyone in Hollywood is seeking fame and fortune; it's in the water here. Everyone from young w... KARRINE STEFFANS Some day the laws of glamour must be discovered, because they are so important that the world would ... BOOTH TARKINGTON The only true retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is the repose of the passions. ... WILLIAM HAZLITT Or maybe they just accept that it's wrong in God's eyes, although not in their own, and they'll worr... CRAIG GROESCHEL Well," I say, "we're practically there." "Where?" says Jefferson. "The future. CHRIS WEITZ I expected them to drive to the hoop. I think it might have been one of those instances where they w... JEFF ACKERMANN Life can be tough & make you wanna give up. But baby keep your head up because you got all the time ... LILLIAN S. VILORIA The world is passing through troubling times. The young people of today think of nothing but themsel... PETER THE HERMIT I keep my old friends, and get older with them, but push young. It's good to be surrounded by ki... CARINE ROITFELD Our image has been seen as old and fuddy-duddy. And while we have always appealed to some groups - i... DUNCAN SIMPSON The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense. JIM HARRISON Ideas cross mountains, borders, and seas. They go anywhere a man can go... THE HOUSTON TIMES The incessant witless repetition of advertisers' moron-fodder has become so much a part of life that... THE TIMES UK The bulkheads were close together, the ceilings low above their helmets. Not much space in there to ... CHRISTINA ENGELA What if you are wrong? What if the gods sent you, and indeed the rest of us, not because we were nev... MARIE LU They were educated women...In my group, there were some prominent business women, a couple of them w... LINDA GENTILE The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. I... RAYMOND CHANDLER The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are. FRANCIS BACON The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are. FRANCIS BACON SR. VIEW FROM A HILL I am not yet quite over it. I am lying down on top of it. Surv... JOHN TOTTENHAM To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I-" Irsa took a careful breath to steady her words. " I have felt alone for most of my life. Until y... RENEE AHDIEH That?s what we had to do against them. They were in a zone and they were bigger than we were, so wha... DICK PRATT why do people always do hurtful things, don't they realise the harm that follows it. some people tha... MIKE GRIST
More W. Somerset Maugham
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SOMERSET MAUGHAM How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pl... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain su... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with i... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that havi... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young ju... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. 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SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country. H... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is a dirty trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We have long passed the Victorian era, when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a ba... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacri... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches them tolerance. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actuall... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is only another name for indifference. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by make-believe. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the wo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and wo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty o... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is er... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man w... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Life isn't long enough for love and art. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When things are at their worst I find something always happens. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, pe... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to th... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefo... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The important thing was to love rather than to be loved. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesth... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for noth... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by butteri... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM