The Razors Edge Somerset Maugham Quotes

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
W. Somerset Maugham ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

How much less is the sense of obligation in those
who receive favours than in those who grant them. Somerset Maugham ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The path to Salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction
the wisecrack. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

And then he felt the misery of his life. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Could not imagine how the Chapter had made such a ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Flaubert prided himself on his frankness; it was indeed brutal. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Peculiar excitement at the mysterious array. She ran her eyes ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He was at once to great and too small for love. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I wonder if it's ok being a second-rate painter. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He gazed at me from the caverns of his impenetrable eyes, ~ W. Somerset Maugham

From a social standpoint the man of science does not exist. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

What do you think it can be that makes him so queer? ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Reading does not make a man wise,it only makes him learned. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Life isn't long enough for love and art. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The painted veil which those who live call life ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. The ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty does not look with good grace on the timid advances of Humour. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Have you ever thought of death?" "Why should I? It doesn't matter. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Poor slut, I think she loves me,' said Gray, his eyes closed. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Had pale scanty hair and an earthy skin; ~ W. Somerset Maugham

[T]hat his cheating and his bitterness and his cruelty were the revolt of his will ... against a deep-rooted instinct of holiness, against a desire for God that terrified and yet obsessed him. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A novel cannot be made of facts alone; in themselves they are dead things. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Love will be stronger and last longer if there are impediments to its gratification. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He had never been quite certain whether this action indicated courage or infirmity of purpose. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved the sense. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He felt a queer little pang of bitterness because reality seemed so different from the ideal ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It is hard that a man's exterior should tally so little sometimes with his soul. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Tolerance is another word for indifference. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Human beings filled him with disgust. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one's own absurdity. LXXX ~ W. Somerset Maugham

We cannot get it out of our heads that there is something comic in taking art so seriously. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The elect sneer at popularity; they are inclined even to assert that it is a proof of mediocrity; ~ W. Somerset Maugham

As we know, Christian charity has always been able to make allowances for a lot of good honest hatred, ... ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Her eyes had the blue of cornflowers, and they smiled with her lips, ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I'm afraid you've thought me a bigger fool than I am. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It does the heart good to look at you. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It is a riddle which shares with the universe the merit of having no answer. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A good Havana is one of the best pleasures that I know. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Only a mediocre person is always at his best. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He mingled idleness and idealism so that he could not separate them. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

One could reconcile oneself to existence only because it was meaningless. It ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Roy has always sincerely believed what everyone else believed at the moment. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than to learn the multiplication table. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

No action is in itself good or bad, but only such according to convention. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

You must not pursue a success, but fly from it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Evil is as direct a manifestation of the divine as good. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

She was like a silvery flower of the night that only gave its perfume to the moonbeams. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

In the midst of life we are in death
one can never tell what may happen. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The bright hopes of youth had to be paid for at such a bitter price of disillusionment. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The great have no friends, dear Blasco. It is the price they must pay for their greatness. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Nothing more predisposes someone in our favour than to let him rob you a little. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Its a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, few are chosen. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

They had furtive eyes and weak chins. There was no wickedness in them, but only pettiness and vulgarity. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

We were staggered and immediately on the defensive, for she looked intellectual, and it made us feel shy. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Marriage is always a hopeless idiocy for a woman who has enough of her own to live upon. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I always found Dickens very coarse. I don't want to read about people who drop their aitches. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The end of culture is right living ~ W. Somerset Maugham

What do you value in life then?"
"I'm afraid you'll laugh at me. Beauty, truth, and goodness. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

And you call yourself an English gentleman,' she exclaimed, savagely.
'No, that's a thing I've never done in all my life. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Enjoy yourself while you have the chance, I say; we shall all be dead in a hundred years and what will anything matter then? ~ W. Somerset Maugham

No egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

How ugly most people are! It's a pity they don't try to make up for it by being agreeable. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It is always distressing when outraged morality does not possess the strength of arm to administer direct chastisement on the sinner. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A state of reverie does not avoid reality, it accedes to reality. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

You're so sharp you'll cut yourself if you don't look out, ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up. You are a pedant, my dear fellow. The important thing is to construct. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

If 50 million people say something foolish, it is still foolish. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I do not know if others are like myself, but I am conscious that I cannot contemplate beauty long. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Can the law get blood out of a stone? I haven't any money. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

To the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

And do you find it more poetic when you don't quite know what it means? ~ W. Somerset Maugham

She did not know why it seemed to her so tragic to cry in her sleep. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The essential element of love is a belief in its own eternity. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I tried to picture to myself the mosque before the Christians laid their desecrating hands upon it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

If the future was so vague it meant perhaps that she was destined never to see it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

There's no one as transparent as the person who thinks he's devilish deep. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

she spent a long hour in the Turner room in the Tate Gallery, drinking ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Books can't matter much if their authors themselves don't think they matter. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Benevolence is often very peremptory. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

[...] she was one of those hostesses who look upon it as a mark of hospitality to make their guests eat however unwilling they may be. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

When my obituary notice at last appears in The Times, and they say: 'What, I thought he died years ago,' my ghost will gently chuckle. ~ W. Somerset Maugham