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W. Somerset Maugham
173 quotes
“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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By the time I was twenty-four I had constructed a complete system of philosophy. It rested on two principles: The Relativity of Things and The Circumferentiality of Man. I have since discovered that the first was not a very original discovery. It may be that the other was profound, but though I have racked my brains I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aren't you missing a lot of fun? You know, one's young for such a little while.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 2 - p.43 [Page numbers per the Pan Books 1978 edition. This was also made into movie.]
“It's so wonderful to shut out the world for a few hours. Rest, peace, silence, solitude. You would think they were luxuries that only the very rich can afford, and yet they cost nothing. Strange that they should be so hard to come by.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, a thing that has always struck me is people's fiendish eagerness to give anyone away. They pretend it's public spirit, I don't believe a word of it; I don't believe it's even, as a rule anyway, the desire for notoriety; I believe it's just due to the baseness of human nature that gets a kick out of injuring others. There's a whole mass of people who can't wait if they have the chance of doing down someone who's trying to get away with anything.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world he knew, the peaceful happy world of the surface, was like a pretty lake in which were reflected the dappled clouds and the willows that grew on its bank, where carefree boys paddled their canoes and the girls with them trailed their fingers in the soft water. It was terrifying to think that below, just below, dangerous weeds waved tentacles to ensnare you and all manner of strange, horrible things, poisonous snakes, fish with murderous jaws, waged an unceasing and hidden warfare.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was too sweeping a judgement to be satisfactory; the idea dawned in Charley's mind that perhaps men were more complicated than he had imagined, and if you just said that a man was this or that you couldn't get very far.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was like one of those comedies where the sets are good and the clothes pretty, where the dialogue is clever and the acting competent, so that you pass an agreeable evening, but a week later cannot remember a thing about it.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It looked as though the people we thought we knew best carried secrets that they didn't even know themselves. Charley had a sudden inkling that human beings were infinitely mysterious. The fact was that you knew nothing about anybody.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm beginning to think it's very hard to know what to believe in this world.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't believe in the god of the Christians who gave his son in order to save mankind. That's a myth. But why should it have arisen if it didn't express some deep-seated intuition in men? I don't know what I believe, because it's instinctive, and how can you describe an instinct with words? I have an instinct that the power that rules us, human beings, animals and things, is a dark and cruel power and that everything has to be paid for, a power that demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and that though we may writhe and squirm we have to submit, for the power is ourselves.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In point of fact, however, they were much more anxious to tell him about their doings than to listen to his.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I thought I should be a fool to allow work to interfere with a delight in the passing moment that I might never enjoy again so fully.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be that if 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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't you know? Because American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Things don't get any easier by putting them off.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He found himself now in the agreeable situation of being able to do what was best for others and at the same time what was convenient to himself.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love...”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Passion doesn't count the cost. ... Passion is destructive.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sad Don Quixote of a worthless purpose.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A god that can be understood is not a god. , -->”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1892", p. 1
“The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1896", p. 17
“The more intelligent a man is the more capable is he of suffering.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1896", p. 19
“Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1896", p. 20
“Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1896", p. 28
“There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1901", p. 66
“What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1901", p. 67
“If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook (1949), entry for 1901
Also quoted by: Bertrand Russell (misattributed)
“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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1922", p. 196
“It was not till quite late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say: "I don't know.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1941", p. 336
“Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1941
“At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You bloody fool, you've killed the wrong man.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Hairless Mexican (1927)
“She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit...”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Revised with quotation in the 1931 compilation Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular.
“Now it is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it...”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Mixture As Before (1940) "The Treasure