He could breathe more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.
W. Somerset Maugham
Related From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Relaxing, experiencing nature and laughing are what rejuvenate me and make me feel happy. I believe ... SUI HE Since raised blood pressure is the major cause of stroke, the blood pressure lowering effect of pota... FENG HE As a young child, I suffered from poor health. My parents encouraged me to swim, which really improv... SUI HE I like to find old things and I picked up that arrowhead in tears, that broken point ... LI HE These findings provide strong support for the recommendations encouraging the public to consume more... FENG HE The average fruit and vegetable intake in most developed countries is about three servings per day, ... FENG HE They are the Chinese heroes. I am happy for their performance and the result is not the most importa... HE ZHENLIANG This will be conducive to the development of Sino-US relations and China's relationships with the re... HE YAFEI The best way to resolve Sino-US trade imbalance is to expand bilateral trade cooperation. Restrictin... HE YAFEI They are sorry there is no more Soviet Union and they don't know how to act. HE YAFEI We are willing to import more U.S. goods. HE YAFEI Even when he's making dumplings with peasants, he speaks memorized words and sounds like a People's ... HE WEIFANG This is a critical moment. There is a lot of opposition to continuing the reforms as they are today. HE WEIFANG I unequivocally state the wish that the Communist Party should become two parties. HE WEIFANG The situation exists in almost every well-known Chinese university. HE WEIFANG The government really wants to slow down investment, but it can't control local governments who have... HE FAN The new managed floating currency regime is just an interim system. There is a chance of a further w... HE FAN Eventually, we found that the situation there was more serious than what we imagined. HE CHANGCHUI Part of our mission is to find out what kind of assistance is required. HE CHANGCHUI My father wanted me to be a pharmacist like himself. He had been a doctor, but he no longer believed... CLAUDE CHABROL He needed the people and the clamour around him. There was no questions and no doubts when he stood ... AYN RAND He felt strangely numb. As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The ... JACK LONDON This love was a torment, and he resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him; he was a pri... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself LOIS LOWRY The way he carried himself on the field, the little things he did made a difference in what his pitc... MIKE SCIOSCIA He almost said to himself that he did not like her, before their conversation ended; he tried so har... ELIZABETH GASKELL He believed that he was bringing help and freedom and protection to other people and so he did not d... DEIRDRE OSTLUND That was his big thing. He did that several times. He was extremely generous. He was always buying t... LYNDELL ZANOTTI A man has to learn that he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot co... JAMES ALLEN It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayer... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The Marquis believed himself to be hardened against flattery. He thought that he had experienced eve... GEORGETTE HEYER He was very religious; he believed that he had a secret pact with God which exempted him from doing ... JORGE LUIS BORGES Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095 As for the miseries and sins he heard of da... BROTHER LAWRENCE Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know t... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Jubal paused, surprised at himself. He had intended to make the usual agnostic approach . . . and... ROBERT A. HEINLEIN The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fa... ROALD DAHL He believed in himself, believed in his quixotic ambition, letting the failures of the previous day ... DANIEL WALLACE Dr. Einstein was not successful in school, but he found something in the air from his own imaginatio... EARTHA KITT All his life Harry Bosch believed he had a mission. And to carry out that mission he needed to be bu... MICHAEL CONNELLY When we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for hi... JEAN-PAUL SARTRE He stepped fully into the house. The air inside was cool on his skin. He turned, expecting the front... ROBERT LIPARULO When he was younger, he used the slightest opportunity to slip away from people, without his being a... PATRICK MODIANO Galen was very quiet last year. He did what he did, but he was very quiet. Now he?s more out there. ... MICHAEL ROBINSON [Harrison's spirituality] was essential to his survival, ... He believed in reincarnation; he believ... ANTHONY DECURTIS He did the best he could. I actually have to thank him for that, because he did compete hurt. He was... KEN ASHLOCK I could tell the whole day there was something off about him. When he walked in, he wouldn't take hi... JULIA JACOB He was a forceful advocate for causes he believed in, ... Sometimes he regarded himself as the consc... RICHARD LEVIN Trent was a complete gentleman and waited patiently for me to speak with him. When he did get his ch... DOUG HOWARD At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportun... RICHARD ADAMS He is extremely nice. He thanked me after every scene I was standing in for him. ANDY FINLEY The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would... VICTOR HUGO He wanted to be loved for being just what he was. In this community of Yskalnari there was harmony, ... MICHAEL ENDE What was his surprise and his joy when, on looking himself over, he saw that he was no longer a Mari... CARLO COLLODI With Tay, I was just trying to get a feel for him. He expressed himself candidly where he thought he... FRAN MCCAFFERY His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time h... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He was lonely because he could imagine himself as anything but himself and as anywhere but where he ... WENDELL BERRY I think that his ability to reach out to people was because of his sincerity in what he was doing. A... ZIGGY MARLEY He was becoming unstuck, he was sure of that - his bones were no longer wrapped in flesh but in clou... TOM ROBBINS The marquis de Carabas was not a good man, and he knew himself well enough to be perfectly certain t... NEIL GAIMAN She wanted to write to him. Tell him she was glad he was back, that he was alive, that he was home a... COCO J. GINGER The Lonliest Man in the World, she said, only has room in his heart for one person, and if he can't ... GARTH RISK HALLBERG When a man gets to despair he knows that all his thinking will never get him out. He will only get o... OSWALD CHAMBERS As Adrian hurried past the Senate House he noticed two old men standing outside Bowes and Bowes. He ... STEPHEN FRY He finds he cannot think of the dying men at all. Into his mind instead strays the picture of More o... HILARY MANTEL He was in conflict with himself. There was no enjoyment in the thought that he had escaped a great d... NORBERT JACQUES He was kind of the old-style beat cop. He took care of his area; he really felt responsible for his ... AL JONES He used to hide his true self because he feared people wouldn’t like him, or would judge him for b... SCOTT STABILE He felt a fluttering inside his chest that he mistook for an air pocket - probably left from when he... NEAL SHUSTERMAN Warrick didn't play as well as he could have last year. He knows that. It was his first year in the ... DALE LINDSEY He is very strong in the air. He is leaps and bounds from where he was last year. BARRY GORMAN You may fancy the Lord had His own power to fall back upon. But that would have been to Him just the... GEORGE MACDONALD He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his men; he smiled because that was what he did... BRANDON SANDERSON No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ... BEN JOHNSON No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ... HUNTER S. THOMPSON No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ... BEN JONSON In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for finding h... THOMAS MERTON In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ''finding... THOMAS MERTON ...He was a greater craftsman even than Isaac, and he knew it, and so, presently, did Isaac. ELIZABETH GOUDGE He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, ... GASTON LEROUX Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up... PAUL AUSTER God bless Brad Jones, he feels about as badly as he can feel. The first 30 days I represented him, I... CARL CORNWELL He never said he was responsible because this was something that he did. ANTHONY RICCO He had no longer any need for home, for he carried his Gormenghast within him. All that he sought wa... MERVYN PEAKE He was so close to having a bad game. He was mad at himself because he felt he wasn't helping his te... BRIAN VOYLES Now they came back to him, on this night he was seventeen years old. All the years and places of his... URSULA K. LE GUIN One of his lungs had collapsed. He couldn't breathe. You could see him struggling for air. GLEN DAVIS You could hear him, literally, half a mile away when he opened up. He was at his peak then. He was, ... ALAN LOMAX He knew Alec enough by now to know the conflicting impulses that warred in him. He was conscientious... CASSANDRA CLARE He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer rememb... NEAL SHUSTERMAN I knew I was a grain of sand in the vast desert that never ended and he was a sparkling star in the ... ALEENA YASIN We all believe that he's with God. He was a spiritual person. He saw the beauty of life, and I have ... JEFF GWALTNEY He told us he met some people from North Carolina and they told him he might could get a scholarship... BARBARA FELTON He firmly believed in what he was doing, and you couldn't sway him from that. It was wonderful to ha... HOPE LUGO You could definitely hear in his voice that he was sorry for what he did and he expressed that he ha... JARED DUDLEY I think last year might have been a surprise, because last year, there was a thought that he could p... LYNN WASHOWICH And David saw himself reflected in the Woodsman's eyes, and there he was no longer old but a young m... JOHN CONNOLLY In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'find... THOMAS MERTON Paul was never a bad kid. It's just where he grew up in the ghetto. He didn't realize that basketbal... JEFF BISHOP
More W. Somerset Maugham
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SOMERSET MAUGHAM I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without d... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayer... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me n... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM In the first place it's not true that people improve as you know them better: they don't. That's why... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she ha... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries o... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is fooli... W. 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SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made o... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assum... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest p... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammere... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People who ask for your criticism want only praise. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know what the critics are. 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SOMERSET MAUGHAM The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tradition is a guide and not a jailer. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasin... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and bef... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences. W. 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SOMERSET MAUGHAM They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ... W. 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. Many are called, but few are chosen. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own cou... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persis... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I like manual labor. Whenever I've got waterlogged with study, I've taken a spell of it and found it... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies a... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dep... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the comm... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To write simply is as difficult as to be good. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is funny about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often get i... W. 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