W Somerset Mauham Quotes

To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the
personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am
willing to excuse a thousand faults. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I cannot believe in a God who has neither humor nor common sense. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

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

People are always a little disconcerted when you don't recognize them, they are so important to themselves, it is a shock to discover of what small importance they are to others.
[The human element] ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

We Americans ... like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He had been taught by his uncle that his prayers were more acceptable to God if he said them in his nightshirt than if he waited till he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for he was beginning to realize that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshipers. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The Magus,the sorcerer, the alchemist, are seized with the fascination of the unknown; and they desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It doesn't matter if I'm only to be gone four days, as in this case; I take six months' supply of reading material everywhere. Anyone who needs further explication of this eccentricity can find it usefully set out in the first pages of W. Somerset Maugham's story The Book-Bag. ~ Robin McKinley

After all, it's not my fault. I can't force myself to believe. If there is a God after all and he punishes me because I honestly don't believe in Him I can't help it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of thought; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It may be that I lead the life I've planned for myself it may affect others; the effect may be no greater than the ripple caused by a stone thrown in a pond, but one ripple causes another and that one a third; it's just possible that a few people will see that my way of life offers happiness and peace, and that they in their turn will teach what they have learned to others. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Laugh while you've got the chance, you won't laugh much when you are dead and buried. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Life is really very fantastic, and one has to have a peculiar sense of humour to see the fun of it.
[Virtue] ~ W. Somerset Maugham

[Hayward] honestly mistook his sensuality for romantic emotion, his vacillation for artistic temperament, and his idleness for philosophical calm ... He was an idealist. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I guessed that he would have a passionate bedfellow that night, but would never know to what prickings of conscience he owed her ardor. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

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

There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment. ~ 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

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

The only way to live is to forget that you're going to die. Death is unimportant. The fear of it should never influence a single action of the wise man. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Happily men don't realise how stupid they are, or half the world would commit suicide. Knowledge is a will-of-the-wisp, fluttering ever out of the traveller's reach; and a weary journey must be endured before it is even seen. It is only when a man knows a good deal that he discovers how unfathomable is his ignorance. The man who knows nothing is satisfied that there is nothing to know, consequently that he knows everything; and you may more easily persuade him that the moon is made of green cheese than that he is not omniscient. ~ 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 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. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute; and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi. ~ 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 been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He was the most inconsiderable 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. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

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

Dying is a dull, dreary affair. my advice is that you have nothing whatever to with it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

But every well has a bottom and finally your friend will come to the end of what he has to tell you: ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too.
[The human element] ~ W. Somerset Maugham

He put off the faith of his childhood quite simply, like a cloak that he no longer needed. At first life seemed strange and lonely without the belief which, though he never realized it, had been an unfailing support. He felt like a man who has leaned on a stick and finds himself forced suddenly to walk without assistance. It really seemed as though the days were colder and the nights more solitary. But he was upheld by the excitement; it seemed to make life a more thrilling adventure; and in a little while the stick which he had throw aside, the cloak which had fallen from his shoulders, seemed an intolerable burden of which he had been eased. ~ 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

All sensible people know that vanity is the most devastating, the most universal, and the most ineradicable of the passions that afflict the soul of man, and it is only vanity that makes him deny its power. It is more consuming than love. With advancing years, mercifully, you can snap your fingers at the terror and the servitude of love, but age cannot free you from the thraldom of vanity. Time can assuage the pangs of love, but only death can still the anguish of wounded vanity. Love is simple and seeks no subterfuge, but vanity cozens you with a hundred disguises. It is part and parcel of every virtue: it is mainspring of courage and the strength of ambition; it gives constancy to the lover and endurance to the stoic; it adds fuel to the fire of the artist's desire for fame and is at once the support and the compensation of the honest man's integrity; it leers even cynically in the humility of the saint. You cannot escape it, and should you take pains to guard against it, it will make use of those very pains to trip you up. You are defenseless against its onslaught because you know not on what unprotected side it will attack you. Sincerity cannot protect you from its snare nor humour from its mockery.
[His Excellency] ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Her pain was so great that she could have screamed at the top of her voice. She had never known that one could suffer so much; and she asked herself desperately what she had done to deserve it. ~ 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