There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his shoulders: it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free. His insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over one another in Philip's eager fancy, and he took long breaths of joyous satisfaction. He felt inclined to leap and sing. He had not been so happy for months. 'Oh, life,' he cried in his heart, 'Oh life, where is thy sting?
W. Somerset Maugham
Related He was the most inconsiderable creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM But he was no longer in Tollygunge. He had stepped out of it as he had stepped so many mornings out ... JHUMPA LAHIRI He used to hide his true self because he feared people wouldn’t like him, or would judge him for b... SCOTT STABILE For the song 'Truth or Consequence,' me and [bassist Mick Morris] had this friend from Salt Lake Cit... JAMES HART It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad tha... J.R.R. TOLKIEN Since the day he was born, he'd been defying the odds. Today was not the day to stop that trend. Unl... SHERRILYN KENYON No thoughtful man ever came to the end of his life, and had time and a little space of calm from whi... WOODROW WILSON He ran as he'd never run before, with neither hope nor despair. He ran because the world was divided... KARL MARLANTES ...He was a greater craftsman even than Isaac, and he knew it, and so, presently, did Isaac. ELIZABETH GOUDGE It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayer... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It had belonged to that idea of the exasperated consciousness of his victim to become a real test fo... HENRY JAMES He was without any comforts of God — no feeling that God loved him — no feeling that God pi... ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE Life seemed ideal to him right then, and he was happy for the first time in a long time, and it felt... DAVID SLOMA His friends told him that nobody was interested in his goddam soul unless it was the priest and he m... FLANNERY O'CONNOR Before he had come to the town he had known about nothing but death: here he had learnt to live, to ... ANNE HOLM This love was a torment, and he resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him; he was a pri... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You may fancy the Lord had His own power to fall back upon. But that would have been to Him just the... GEORGE MACDONALD In one horrible moment the last piece of the prophecy became clear. So bid him take care,... SUZANNE COLLINS He knew today that his life was forever changed in that one moment and he was clueless as to why or ... P.J. FIALA It came to him that he had turned away from the buffalo not because of a womanish nausea at blood an... JOHN WILLIAMS The marquis de Carabas was not a good man, and he knew himself well enough to be perfectly certain t... NEIL GAIMAN He tried to shape in his mind what he had to say to McDonald. It was a feeling; it was an urge that ... JOHN WILLIAMS We do not always remember the things that do no credit to us. We justify them, cover them in bright ... NEIL GAIMAN Few are born bold. Even Napoleon had to cultivate the habit on the battlefield, where he knew it was... ROBERT GREENE He tried to remember Moon Child's eyes, but was no longer able to. He was sure of only one thing: th... MICHAEL ENDE It was a comet. The boy saw the comet and he felt as though his life had meaning. And when it went a... LUCAS SCOTT Over time, there would be less and less of him and more of the tumor. His brain was being eaten by G... MAX BARRY Hunter woke suddenly. A noise. It was a noise unlike anything he’d ever heard before. Close! ... MICHAEL GRANT He was a man who was charged with the work he did in life because he was not one to ask questions - ... DOUGLAS ADAMS Since the day he was born, he'd been defying the odds. Today was not the day to stop that trend. Unl... SHERRILYN KENYON To the rich man, Lazarus was part of the landscape. If ever he did notice him, it never struck him t... WILLIAM BARCLAY He was about to go home, about to return to the place where he had had a family. It was in Godric’... J.K. ROWLING During the years of suffering he reachd the conclusion that life was war in which he was one of the ... VICTOR HUGO And in an essential way, this was what he was most ashamed of: not his poor understanding of sex, no... HANYA YANAGIHARA All his life Harry Bosch believed he had a mission. And to carry out that mission he needed to be bu... MICHAEL CONNELLY He was at a point in his life where he was retired. And he had expressed this was the happiest point... JODI OLSON His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time h... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For the first and the last time in his life, Corax cried. He cried not for the loss of life, though ... GAV THORPE The cover was pebbled black leather, the pages onionskin, and he opened it carefully. It was his fir... CHARLES L. GRANT Feast of the Conversion of Paul The God of Pharisaism was like the God of the Deists, He stood al... C. H. DODD At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportun... RICHARD ADAMS When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a l... RAY BRADBURY She couldn't think of anyone else who remotely resembled him. He was complicated, almost contradicto... NICHOLAS SPARKS Life is not interested in good and evil. Don Quixote was constantly choosing between good and evil, ... WILLIAM FAULKNER The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like ... BIBLE He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance a... JACK LONDON I liked everything I read about Braddock, ... I liked who he was before he was a champion, who he wa... RUSSELL CROWE It was him against the flames and he revelled in it. Logan was good at his job. Exceptionally g... AMY ANDREWS And Harry remembered his first nightmarish trip into the forest, the first time he had ever encounte... J.K. ROWLING He sat there among them, listened to the buzz of their conversation. He was captivated by them. In t... DEZSő KOSZTOLáNYI Jason knew his life would never be the same again. British intelligence now had an ace up their slee... MARK A. COOPER His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented real... JULIAN BARNES I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES God, he suddenly understood, was love in its purest form, and in these last months with his children... NICHOLAS SPARKS I believe that Jesus would have given His life for just one person. Jesus emptied Himself, He humble... HEIDI BAKER And suddenly she knew exactly why Catherine had fallen in love with him. It wasn't that he was unusu... NICHOLAS SPARKS This boy," he said, indicating the paintings with one sweep of his arms, "was romantic. He thought t... MARY BALOGH He knew Alec enough by now to know the conflicting impulses that warred in him. He was conscientious... CASSANDRA CLARE Whether or not, he felt very much at home in this state. It was to places like this that they had se... DOUGLAS WOOLF The telephone was not his favorite object, and more than once he had considered getting rid of his. ... PAUL AUSTER And Harry saw very clearly as he sat there under the hot sun how people who cared about him had stoo... J.K. ROWLING I watched the black ocean in his eyes and saw this flash behind them and understood what he had mean... T.J. KLUNE (On WWI:) A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili o... BERYL MARKHAM Of all the women he knew, she had meant the most; and was the one person in his life he felt he had ... LARRY MCMURTRY There was a mixture there and it was a rather pleasant mixture, and I think it helped him a lot in t... MICHAEL PALIN Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but alw... PAUL HOFFMAN The park was the heart of the city. He had come to the city – and with a knowing in his blood – ... FLANNERY O'CONNOR As they scuffled in the grass, Adam closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He could nearly scry j... MAGGIE STIEFVATER C.J. had once believed that he understood who he was, what he was about, what he was capable of. But... ROY L. PICKERING JR. He asked if we could sit in private. He had this letter. It explained his life, where he was from, h... BECKY GARLAND He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; b... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There had been a time in Godfrey's life when, had she stood before him in all her splendor, he would... GEORGE MACDONALD Have you ever noticed that Jesus is never recorded as taking a holiday? He retired for the purposes ... EVELYN UNDERHILL Looking at him she felt she knew what the people of antiquity had been like. Thirty centuries or mor... PAUL BOWLES ....Then he felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wing; for he did not know what to do, he ... HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN When he heard his father call out for Abel and he saw his borther go forth, it made him feel like he... JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN No, he got himself in a predicament where he felt threatened so he kind of took the offensive. He pa... TERRY FRANCONA It wasn't as though he didn't have choices. He could have expanded his career, maybe further it with... BOB FULLER Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our ... ELLEN G. WHITE It is not that Shakespeare's art is in technicolor and fancy, and that real life is black and wh... STEPHEN GREENBLATT He wanted to be loved for being just what he was. In this community of Yskalnari there was harmony, ... MICHAEL ENDE He was lonely because he could imagine himself as anything but himself and as anywhere but where he ... WENDELL BERRY And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I... RAY BRADBURY And not only of even mainly because of the protection it had given him - it was thanks to his own st... MICHAEL ENDE ...his sleep, though deep as death itself, was not dreamless this time, but threaded with ghostly wi... PATRICK SüSKIND He needed the people and the clamour around him. There was no questions and no doubts when he stood ... AYN RAND My father's life was so decimated by his earliest experiences. His mother died when he was 7 yea... WALTER MOSLEY I think that his ability to reach out to people was because of his sincerity in what he was doing. A... ZIGGY MARLEY THERE was a man in our town, and he was wondrous rich; He gave away his millions to the colleges... FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS It took Pueblo a few seconds to take in his surroundings. The first thing he realised was that he fe... DIANNA HARDY They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ... W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He felt strangely numb. As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The ... JACK LONDON Suddenly he saw himself as others in the crowd must surely see him; a silent, solitary figure, stand... MARY LAWSON This was the greatest gift that he had, the talent that fitted him for war; that ability not to igno... ERNEST HEMINGWAY As he was gasping for air he realized something. He was in deep shit. Haley was his life now. His wo... R.L. MATHEWSON Though he turned the pages with the sensuous joy of the book-lover, he did not know what he was read... EDITH WHARTON He couldn’t look back at the children. He couldn’t think of it. All he could do was watch the ey... RACHEL A. MARKS At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings... AYN RAND He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a... JACK LONDON A little later, when breakfast was over and I had not yet gone up-stairs to my room, I had my first ... ELLEN GLASGOW
More W. Somerset Maugham
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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