The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is err...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselve...
WILLIAM 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...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who w...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Resignation is the timid sign of courage
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate m...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tears are words the heart can't express
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tradition is a guide and not a jailer
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knowswhat they are.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but th...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To write simply is as difficult as to be good
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
WILLIAM 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...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantag...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only tha...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries o...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The writer is more concerned to know than to judge
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches them tolerance.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Genius is talent provided with ideals.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The value of art is not beauty, but right action
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain just...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there's only one way to do that, he must also f...
WILLIAM 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...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We do not write as we want to but as we can
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It wasn't until quite late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, "I don't know
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be so grossly over-popu...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is only another name for indifference
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a senten...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Writing is the supreme solace.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men are passionate, men are weak, men are stupid, men are pitiful; to bring to bear on them anything...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacri...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to acc...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The degree of a nation's civilization is marked by its disregard for the necessities of existence.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradic...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Only a mediocre person is always at his best
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are two good things in life freedom of thought and freedom of action
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miserie...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The crown of literature is poetry.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which ...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large wi...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actuall...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is another word for indifference.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM Impropriety is the soul of wit.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
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