W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
English short-story writer, novelist and playwright, 1874-1965
A
man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with
sex and all that sort of thing.
A
woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him
for the sacrifices he makes on her account.—The Moon and Sixpence
A
woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her
much good.
An
unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to
give up than the bad ones.
Any
nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose
its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and
comfort too.
Anyone
can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
Art
is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied
with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.—"Of
Human Bondage", 1915
At
a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too
wisely.
Beauty
is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said
about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
Considering
how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be
better for the world if they talked more and did less.
Death
doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern
the dead because they have ceased to exist.
Dying
is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever
to do with it.
D'you
call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our
struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a
hundred times I say when I look round at my children.—"Of
Human Bondage", 1915
Every
production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
Excess
on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening
effect of a habit.
Few
misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really
affectionate mother.
Follow
your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.—"Of
Human Bondage", 1915
Habits
in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease
to be advantageous.
Have
common sense and stick to the point.
He
had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever
tried to do without it.—"Of Human Bondage", 1915
Human
sorrow is like a child born in the night who sees the sun rise and thinks that
yesterday never existed.
Hypocrisy
is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs
an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery
or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
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.—"Of Human
Bondage", 1915
I
do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be
ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are
conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no
hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.
I
do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am
the centre of the world.—"Of Human Bondage", 1915
I
don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.
I
don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting
present.—The Moon and Sixpence
I
look into my empty heart and shrink dismayed: My soul is like a desert, and the
wild wind blows In its silent, barren spaces.
I
made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that
I could pay others to do for me.
I
would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much
more entertaining than half the novels that are written.
If
you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good
news?
If
you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
I'll
give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the
right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
Imagination
grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature
than in the young.
Impropriety
is the soul of wit.
In
Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple
occasionally.
In
the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with
its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a
monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
It
is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but
the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which
have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real,
they are bruised and wounded.—"Of Human
Bondage", 1915
It
is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
It
is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.—"Of
Human Bondage", 1915.
It
is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that
sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
It
is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work
unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.—"Of Human
Bondage", 1915.
It
is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work
unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
It
is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
It
is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
It
seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together
in their highest perfection.
It
was such a lovely day I thought it was a pity to get up.—"Our
Betters", 1923
It
wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say "I don't
know."
It's
a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you
very often get it.
It's
asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your
sense of the aesthetic.—"Of Human Bondage", 1915
It's
no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact
is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
It's
very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
Let
us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its
institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our
day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
Life
isn't long enough for love and art.—The Moon and
Sixpence
Life
wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present.—"Of
Human Bondage", 1915
Like
all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.—"Of
Human Bondage", 1915
Love
is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
Love
is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.
Marriage
is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
Men
have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the
error is ineradicable.
Men
seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.—"Of Human Bondage",
1915
Money
is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other
five.—"Of Human Bondage", 1915
Money
is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
No gray hairs streak my soul, no grandfatherly fondness
there! I shake the world with the might of my voice, and walk -handsome,
twenty-two year old.
Old
age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures
of youth.
Old
age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too
long.
Only
a mediocre person is always at his best.
People
ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
Perfection
has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
Perfection
is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all
aim at, is better not quite achieved.
Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong
way.
She
had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
She
plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a
channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.
Sometimes
people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course
they actually become the person they seem.—The Moon
and Sixpence
The
artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it
is the nature of water to run down the hill.
The
common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and
self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part,
humble, tolerant and kind.
The
crown of literature is poetry.
The
essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
The
great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been
rejected.
The
great critic must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity,
impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.
The
great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
The
important thing was to love rather than to be loved.—"Of
Human Bondage", 1915
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never
returned.
The
most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to
expediency.
The
rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a
why and a wherefore.—"Of Human Bondage", 1915
The
trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
The
world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of
its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
The
world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the
sight of distress.
The
writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
The
writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
There
are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they
are.
There
are two good things in life: freedom of thought and freedom of action.
There
is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the
world at large with surprise and horror.
There
is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the
order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
There
is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very
little about which one can be certain.
There
was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem
to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little
while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed. —"Of
Human Bondage", 1915
There's
always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.—"Of Human
Bondage", 1915
Things
were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking
generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly
bad.
Tolerance
is another word for indifference.
Tradition
is a guide and not a jailer.
We
are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy
chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
We
do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
We
have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain
interval by a baby.
We
know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
We
learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
We
seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not
the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together,
unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
What
has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had
I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did,
perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about
French literature.
What
makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and
physical, but the burden of one's memories.
When
I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come
across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it
becomes part of me.—"Of Human Bondage", 1915
When
things are at their worst I find something always happens.—"Of Human
Bondage", 1915
When
you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.
When
you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over
character.
When
you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
Writing
is the supreme solace.
You
are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
You
are unlikely to have a startling adventure if you never take a more hazardous
journey than a tram ride from your house to the office. It is the same with the
soul.
You
can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences.
You
know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.