William Somerset Maugham quotes Born: 01/25/1874 Died: 12/16/1965 Country: united_kingdom

• However harmless a thing is, if the law forbids it most people will think it wrong. (William Somerset Maugham) [thing/right/people/willpower]
• 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. (William Somerset Maugham) [account]
• There are two good things in life freedom of thought and freedom of action. (William Somerset Maugham) [life/action]
• There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror. (William Somerset Maugham) [life/surprise/horror]
• We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits. (William Somerset Maugham)
• To write simply is as difficult as to be good. (William Somerset Maugham)
• A good rule for writers: Do not explain overmuch. (William Somerset Maugham) [writers]
• To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give. (William Somerset Maugham) [courage/character/give]
• The crown of literature is poetry. (William Somerset Maugham) [literature/poetry]
• 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. (William Somerset Maugham) [power]
• Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young. (William Somerset Maugham) [imagination/exercise/more]
• 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. (William Somerset Maugham) [take/more/journey/tram]
• 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. (William Somerset Maugham) [eyes]
• I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all. (William Somerset Maugham)
• The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love. (William Somerset Maugham) [life/men/love]
• Tolerance is another word for indifference. (William Somerset Maugham) [tolerance]
• There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knowswhat they are. (William Somerset Maugham) [novel]
• At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. (William Somerset Maugham)
• 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. (William Somerset Maugham) [look/wild]
• 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. (William Somerset Maugham) [beauty]
• Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. (William Somerset Maugham)
• Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. (William Somerset Maugham) [habit]
• A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence. (William Somerset Maugham) [consequence]
• I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all. (William Somerset Maugham)
• There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action. (William Somerset Maugham) [life/action]
• It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection. (William Somerset Maugham) [perfection]
• If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom: and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too. (William Somerset Maugham) [nation/more/willpower/irony]
• Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assume with their inferiors in order to show them that they are not in the least conscious of any difference in station between them. (William Somerset Maugham) [lady/order/difference]
• I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene. It is the white-collar proletariat. They do not go to university to acquire culture but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious . They are scum. (William Somerset Maugham) [more/men/university/government]
• No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul. (William Somerset Maugham)
• 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. (William Somerset Maugham) [nation/more/comfort/willpower]

Calendar

Sun Mon Tue Wen Thu Fri Sat Apr 25 [65] 26 [51] 27 [71] 28 Apr 29 [10] 30 [58] 1 [2] 2 [50] 3 [73] 4 [75] 5 [35] May 6 [75] 7 [104] 8 [50] 9 10 [106] 11 [79] 12 [50] May 13 [50] 14 [8] 15 [75] 16 [114] 17 [50] 18 [112] 19 May 20 [79] 21 [76] 22 [59] 23 [43] 24 [61] 25 [71] 26 [50] May

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