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.
W. Somerset Maugham
Related
The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I hope I remember everything," said Toni.
"You won't," said Trapp. "That's how you learn. But a...
LOUIS SACHAR The one thing I wanted to do more than anything else was sing country music.
PATSY CLINE The one thing women love more than money is power.
D. L. HUGHLEY I don't feel when I'm writing that I'm drawing from any other writer, but of course I mu...
CHARLES MCCARRY I think advice is cheap. You can only really learn by doing and making mistakes.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU Or perhaps one can learn only by one’s own mistakes. The essential thing is to learn. Learning and...
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT Doing the right thing has power.
LAURA LINNEY Fear can be conquered only by doing the thing which makes one frightened most, provided he keeps him...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Take a second out to think about this: in your life you search and search for the right person for y...
IAN PHILPOT Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right
PETER F. DRUCKER Jane Heard.
ONE The successful person places more attention on doing the right thing rather than doing things right.
PETER DRUCKER The successful person places more attention on doing the right thing rather than doing things right.
PETER F. DRUCKER Do not withhold good . . . when it is in your power to do it.
RACHEL HAUCK Doing what's right is seldom easy.
JANICE HARDY Doing whats right is never easy ... You think you're right, but you lose track of what you were tryi...
JANICE HARDY You can't make other people do "right."
All you can do is "right" yourself, and
sometimes even that'...
BILLY C LEE One thing I see right off the bat is that we're not as deep. We're going to have to make adjustments...
BOB CAVANAGH The one thing people seem to forget is the more oil we have, the lower the price and the lower the p...
DAVID PRATT I think athletics makes higher profits than almost any other industry. I think athletics makes highe...
JOYCE MERRILL The one thing I have wanted to stay away from is the steroids. When I had an attack two years ago in...
MARY ANN MOBLEY There's a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing.
CHRIS FUSSELL Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.
VICTOR HUGO Change is the one thing we can be sure of.
NAOMI JUDD The one thing that matters is the effort.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY Love is the one thing in life that makes everything worthwhile.
CARRIE ANN INABA ...avoidance of small mistakes makes the large ones more severe.
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB Independence isn't doing your own thing; it's doing the right thing on your own.
KIM JOHN PAYNE The one thing I can assure you is that I'm not going to do a Prescott.
DAVID TRIMBLE The best advice comes from the one who has made more mistakes– they have learned great lessons! Th...
CHINONYE J. CHIDOLUE Far more has been accomplished for the welfare and progress of mankind by preventing bad actions tha...
WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING Everybody would like to be remembered, the catch is do you want to be remembered for all the wrong r...
GARY F EVANS... You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.
RICHARD BRANSON The best advice I've ever received is, 'No one else knows what they're doing either.
RICKY GERVAIS A man profits more by the sight of an idiot than by the orations of the learned.
ARABIC PROVERB A man profits more by the sight of an idiot than by the orations of the learned.
ARABIAN PROVERBS I do my own thing. And I believe what I do is the right thing.
KAREENA KAPOOR KHAN Doing the right thing for someone else was like a tonic for me; it was like some magic ointment that...
SUSIE BRIGHT Wrong is wrong though everyone is doing it. Right is always right though no one is doing it. Be alar...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA I have to make sure that I am doing the right thing. I can't afford to make any mistake.
EHUD OLMERT The one thing I do that nobody else does is jump three and four times for one rebound.
DENNIS RODMAN The one thing you can control is effort.
MALIK JACKSON Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.
FREYA STARK The one thing you can't do when you're highly ranked is relax.
WILLIAM FLOYD Antarctica is a very alien environment, and you can't survive here more than minutes if you'...
JON KRAKAUER To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the
personality of the artist; and if that is ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM So, the one thing means extreme focus and a lot of work – one important thing at a time. The autho...
ALAN ADAMS They Young People have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its ne...
ARISTOTLE They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its ...
ARISTOTLE But suppose one doesn't quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose," said Harriet, falling bac...
DOROTHY L. SAYERS I adore women, and the one thing I want to do more than anything is to see a transformation of perso...
ALBER ELBAZ Right off the bat, most people experience a 'deer in the headlight' syndrome because they're overwhe...
BRIAN CLAPP The one thing I'm convinced George W. Bush is good at is bipartisanship. It's clearly someth...
TUCKER CARLSON By doing the pre-planning, it can take the crisis management off of a child or loved one later on.
HOLLY HANSON Flying dreams mean that you're doing the right thing with your life.
DOUGLAS COUPLAND When you're traumatized, you pick out one thing you remember more than anything else.
ALLISON ANDERS Her joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was, in terms of permanently memorable...
J.D. SALINGER Wrong is wrong,though evey one is doing it Right is always right though no one is doing it.Be alarme...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA One thing I have learned from many years of watching my father is that some people, the best ones, a...
RAE CARSON The one thing I will never do is become pigeonholed.
VIN DIESEL Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the righ...
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I've learned, and possibly the only...
TAYLOR SWIFT By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense.
HORACE WALPOLE On Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday:
"These two simply apprec...
STANLEY CAVELL We need to have a purpose in this life. I'm pleading with you, I'm begging with you to do th...
JAMES MCGREEVEY One knows less about one's own destiny than about anything else on earth.
GABRIELLE ROY To their simple, degenerate minds there was only one thing to do when faced by a God more powerful t...
BRANDON SANDERSON The wording suggests that at least as far as indoor is concerned we will not see profits growing by ...
HENRIK SCHULTZ I don't think you can have pain and soul-searching doing the right thing for your child.
DIANE ABBOTT For me, going vegan was an ethical and environmental decision. I'm doing the right thing by the ...
ALEXANDRA PAUL Nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on what is just and right.
JOHN MILTON What else can you expect from a town that's shut off from the world by the ocean on one side and New...
O. HENRY We should not blame people by the mistakes of others.
DANIEL MELGAçO “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their...
MILTON FRIEDMAN One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their re...
MILTON FRIEDMAN The one thing that makes me feel super lucky about my financial success is that I have a housekeeper...
GWEN STEFANI It is much better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right, because when errors are co...
RUSSELL ACKOFF The one thing we know today is we can't continue to do business the way we have in the past.
BUD SELIG I just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing.
DAMIAN LEWIS Maybe that would be a good thing to do.
He wasn't entirely sure, and that bothered him m...
EMILY VEINGLORY Most of the time - 99 percent of the time - you just don't know how and why the threads are looped t...
LAUREN OLIVER The one thing I think you must do is, as painful as it is as a parent, is listen.
TEA LEONI The one thing I do like is lotion and moisture on my hands and face. I love to have my face moisturi...
LIL' KIM The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.
HENRY MILLER The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.
JAMES BROWN The one thing I need to leave behind is good memories.
MICHAEL LANDON There were times when I wondered if I was doing the right thing, studying when I could have been goi...
EVE HEWSON I define downtime as being awake but not being stimulated by someone else. They may be playing by th...
HEATHER FINDLAN Across the country military families are facing dire financial circumstances due to longer than expe...
EVAN BAYH I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.
IRIS MURDOCH Memories you capture on purpose are always more vivid than the ones you pick up by accident.
ISAAC MARION The only thing that makes one place more attractive to me than another is the quantity of heart I fi...
JANE WELSH CARLYLE The toughest thing to do in politics is to do the right thing when your supporters think the right t...
PAT TOOMEY One knows less about one's own destiny than about anything else on earth.
GABRIELLE ROY Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doi...
KATE ATKINSON It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and a...
VINCENT VAN GOGH It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and a...
VINCENT VAN GOGH one who makes no mistakes makes nothing
GIACOMO CASANOVA
More W. Somerset Maugham
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Writing is the supreme solace.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, on...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of ligh...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the ba...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, ch...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is another word for indifference.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead beca...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
W SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I learnt that men were moved by a savage egoism, that love was only the dirty trick nature played on...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantag...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was ...
W. 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. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradic...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great critic...must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, i...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The Americans who are the most efficient people on earth...have invented so wide a range of pithy an...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate m...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clich?s that...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to acc...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
W. 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.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People who ask for your criticism want only praise.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an aut...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are...
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 The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the b...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the uni...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others...
W. 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. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense, and you can't make use of the other five without it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Wives are people who feel they don't dance enough.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The well-dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For the memory of love is sweet, though the love itself were in vain. And what I have lost of pleasu...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The end of culture is right living.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It abs...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifice...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Bo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going dow...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. I...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The crown of literature is poetry.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering f...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
W. 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 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