FastSaying

Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion...


W. Somerset Maugham

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

This is too much reality for a Friday.
AS GOOD AS IT GETS Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it appears to be.
JEFFREY FRY He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; b...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is not scary enough and not so sweet life of the human foot leaves gentility.
IMAM ALI (AS) The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM And if you can’t shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade ...
CONSTANTINOS P. CAVAFIS As far as we are concerned, we Syria have not changed.
BASHAR AL-ASSAD As far as the style, I was fascinated by surrealism.
MARK MOTHERSBAUGH As far as I know, I have no pride of opinion.
ALBERT J. NOCK Nothing trumps honesty, as far as I'm concerned.
DAVID KOECHNER As far as I'm concerned, there is no subject that's off the table.
GARRY TRUDEAU As far as festivals, nothing tops Cannes.
SASHA LANE A BMW can't take you as far as a diploma.
JOYCE MEYER Reach for it. Push yourself as far as you can.
CHRISTA MCAULIFFE Television's going, as far as I'm concerned, downhill, and I'm an anachronism.
DICK VAN DYKE Wearing corsets all the time was completely incapacitating, as far as digestion goes.
HELENA BONHAM CARTER As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.
JEF RASKIN As far as music, Louis Armstrong is one of my heroes.
JON BATISTE As far as natural ability, I was always athletic.
TROY BROWN That my philosophy of life is, as far as possible, one of enjoyment. I'm not nihilistic.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Fame was not at all what it was cracked up to be, as far as I was concerned.
DAVE MADDEN In Cloud computing the difference between a dark cloud and a cloud with a silver lining, is the part...
RAJAT MOHAN I want to rethink 'surrender' as an active verb.
BRIAN ENO We must strive to let go our life as we planned,so as to have life we are destined for & that comes ...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA The surrounding nature is the best erudite master to teach us the basics of living.
ANUJ SOMANY Success is not a journey, it's a destination called satisfaction.
ANUJ SOMANY Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.
JON BON JOVI It should not be surprised by seeing in our weird world that the people for enjoying own bread can a...
ANUJ SOMANY Everyone out there is using you for their entertainment and what you mostly need is to be entertainm...
SUPERNA BATHEJA There are a lot of good arguments for birth control, but as far as terminating a life that has alrea...
KATHY IRELAND As far as working out, I know exactly what I'm doing.
EVANDER HOLYFIELD As far as groupies, I never saw any of them.
DAVY JONES As far as my relationship with President Putin is concerned, it's fine.
GERHARD SCHRODER As far as I can tell, most actors' main motivation is self-doubt and neuroses.
DANIEL RADCLIFFE As far as sustaining our popularity, I believe we can.
VINCE MCMAHON In Paris, you're as far as possible from the land of pleasant smiles.
KANYE WEST As far as my journal, I want to share tour life with my fans.
NATALIE GULBIS We've actually eliminated Type II polio in the world, at least as far as we can tell.
SETH BERKLEY Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.
JOSEPH STALIN As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.
ALBERT EINSTEIN Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther.
J. P. MORGAN Go as far as you can see; when you get there you'll be able to see farther.
THOMAS CARLYLE What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. There are people we trust b...
STEPHEN R. COVEY As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland.
DONALD TRUMP You know, if it weren't for these fans, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did.
ADAM LAMBERT As far as my notoriety or whatever, I haven't been the star of a hit film.
ALESSANDRO NIVOLA I wouldn't trust any man as far as you can throw a piano.
ETHEL MERMAN That's SHIT!

How do you remove it?
You just put it inside the trash, easy as that.
DEYTH BANGER Only fools wait, and only tools bait.
CRE Normal? What's that?"

"How you really look."

"Can you take off all your clothe...
KIERSTEN WHITE Yeah, I got her,” Will confirms.
“Who you got?” I ask.
“You, drunk girl. Come on.�...
KRISTEN PROBY Will father be there?" she asked.

John turned to her in astonishment.

Your fat...
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD There are approximately two trillion cells in the human body. You are never alone, there are always ...
DWIGHT W. HAYES There isn't a class structure in Nigeria; there's a tribal structure and prestige as far as ...
SADE ADU As far as expectations go, you can never work for expectations. You have to work against them.
KAJOL And as far as guitars go, I loved Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West's stuff.
WILLIE NELSON As far as I'm concerned, the best acting class is life.
JAKE MCLAUGHLIN Men, we don't get much, as far as holidays go - Father's Day.
DMX As far as cities go, Havana is a festering treasure chest, a primary color.
BRIN-JONATHAN BUTLER I don't know what it is about 'Godzilla,' but as far as I'm concerned, the more vers...
RHYS DARBY As far as missile defense is concerned, a very thorough consultation process is underway.
GERHARD SCHRODER I am not a lobbyist. I am not a political activist. I am not a leader, as far as I'm concerned.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS As far as military necessity will permit, religiously respect the constitutional rights of all.
GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN On 'Buffy' I wasn't all that high on the totem pole as far as responsibility and screen ...
CHARISMA CARPENTER As far as the world was concerned, from 1979 to 1996, I didn't publish any original material; it...
ALAN GARNER Kolkata is the relatively unexplored part of India as far as Hindi films are concerned.
SANJAY DUTT As far as rap, I was more of a Mobb Deep guy rather than a Tribe guy.
ACTION BRONSON I'm not funny. Never have been and, as far as I can tell, I never will be.
DAVID DOBKIN I don't care what the religion is called; as far as I'm concerned, one God, the God I adhere...
CHARLEY PRIDE The hardest thing is the idea. Ideas come from somewhere but as far as we know they come from nowher...
IAN HUNTER Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
RONALD REAGAN As far as the grunge thing, there are three bands from Seattle that I would call true grunge.
ADAM JONES I don't really have foresight as an actor as far as career trajectory - I just stick to no-brain...
ADAM DRIVER I've been in this business my whole life. I'm pretty bulletproof as far as being hurt.
TINA YOTHERS As far as the fouls go, we are not going to rely on anyone else to make the calls for us.
DAN QUINN With Magic Leap, your brain doesn't distinguish what's real and what's Magic Leap. Becau...
RONY ABOVITZ As far as I'm concerned, there's no job more important on the planet than being a mom.
MARK WAHLBERG As far as the charge against me is concerned I have a clear conscience.
WILHELM FRICK Well, real estate is always good, as far as I'm concerned.
DONALD TRUMP As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely esse...
WILLIAM GOLDMAN The bottom line as far as I was concerned was presenting to the public who Gerry Ferraro was.
GERALDINE FERRARO As far as my mental approach, I really think it's just knowing that the past is really irrelevan...
JAKE ARRIETA There's nothing like working with your mates - it's the way it should be, as far as I'm ...
HEATH LEDGER In the Roman commonwealth, even on the conversion of the monarchy into a republic, the old was as fa...
THEODOR MOMMSEN In the States, tennis is sixth or seventh on the totem pole as far as sports go.
ANDY RODDICK Depression, as far as I'm concerned, is just a waste of time.
HELEN REDDY As far as I know, the original 'X-Men' actors will remain in the franchise.
BEN HARDY As far as I'm concerned, ageing is humanity's worst problem, by some serious distance.
AUBREY DE GREY As far as I was concerned, either I was a homosexual or I wasn't, so making films would change n...
CLAUDE CHABROL As far as jeans and shirts, I rock a lot of different things.
COLIN KAEPERNICK In the end, I think you really only get as far as you're allowed to get.
GAYLE GARDNER What the Father gives is the capacity to be a self, freedom, and thus autonomy, but an autonomy whic...
HANS URS VON BALTHASAR “A writer soon learns that easy to read is hard to write ...”
CJ HECK As far I'm working on The life Of one Kid 7... continue!
DEYTH BANGER Weigh your words carefully. They may tip the balance."
RAIN BOJANGLES One has to take a somewhat bold and dangerous line with this existence: especially as, whatever happ...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE My words itch at your ears till you understand them
WALT WHITMAN A lot of teenagers write to me and say "I want to write a book. I want to get published." And those ...
MAUREEN JOHNSON - Futebol não tem lógica.
Jô SOARES I became an ifrit to save the lives of my fellow jinn. What kind of life saver would I be if I let y...
JACKSON PEARCE

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...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get...
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.
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. 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 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 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