W. Somerset Maugham famous quotes

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

#Love #Life #Change

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Funny #Life

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Mean #Difficult

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Powerful #Creativity #Writing

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Beautiful #Essence #Unity

How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Break Up #Broken Heart #Breakup

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Life #Book #Reading

There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Love #Life #Famous Love

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

#Education #Reading #Book

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

#Writing #Real Talk #Three

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Life #Friendship #Time

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Secret #Life Is

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Perfection #People #Sometimes

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Behind The Scenes #Illusion #Fame

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Freedom #Patriotic #Liberty

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Women #Differences #Long

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Disappointment #Real #Reading

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Change #Lasts #Delight

Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Fashion #Beach #Lying

An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Lying #Book #Heart

I'd sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Looks #Crosses #Bus

If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Race #Silence #Use

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

#People #Would Be #World

Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Life #Death

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Time #Memories #Age

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Sarcastic #Belief #Substitutes

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

#Art #May #Emotion

A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Writing #Effort #Style

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Tables #Half #Novel

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Positive Thinking #World

The well dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Men #Clothes #Well Dressed

I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan't make the mistakes I've made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I'm going to bring up my daughter so that she's free and can stand on her own feet. I´m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he's willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Girl #Daughter #Children

You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Sex #Adultery #Committed

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Funny #Death

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Love #Life #Important

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

#Book #Reading #Eye

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Success #Congratulations

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Funny #Science

Writing is the supreme solace.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Writing #Solace

She [Sadie Thompson] gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer. "You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!"
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Dirty #Men #Expression

All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary-it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Writing #Use #Matter

Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Men #Association #Sometimes

The most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Wisdom #Regret #Life Is

Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Men #Suffering #Want

The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Men #Able #Reputation

The crown of literature is poetry.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Hygiene #Poetry #Literature

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

#Writing #Gentleman #Comeback

It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Sad #Praise #Oneself

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

#Country #Night #Light

Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Writing #Looks #Weight

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Love #Life #Change

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

#Love #Sarcastic #Depressing

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Steps #Poet #Prose

Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#People #Wells

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Beauty #Simple #Smell

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Life #Character

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.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Funny #Marriage #Witty

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Motivational #Change #Believe

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Happiness #Humorous #Mind

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Life #Excess

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Love #Life #Heartbreak

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Children #Humble #Easy

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Independent #Dignity #Wealth

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Clever #Happy New Year

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Mistake #Thinking #Funny Marriage

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Giving Up #World #Habit

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Art #Travel #Adventure

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

#Inspirational #Life #Failure

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Food #Breakfast #Want

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Envy #Gossip #People

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Laughter #Humor #Laughing

A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Order #Sheep #Imagination

When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Mean #Eye #Thinking

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

#Perfection #Dull #Irony

Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Worried #Worst #Wells

She loved three things — a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Wine #Men #Glasses

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Writing #Crafts #Difficult

If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Lying #Sometimes #Oneself

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

#Love #Men #Madly In Love

When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#High School #Age #Emotion

If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Wise #People #Atheism

Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Temptation #Desire #Way

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

#Truth #Telling The Truth

She’s wonderful. Tell her I’ve never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you.” Waddington, smiling, translated the question. “She says I’m good.” “As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue,” Kitty mocked.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Beautiful #Men #Hands

I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Morning #Inspiration #Writing

I don't understand anything. Life is so strange. I feel like some one who's lived all his life by a duck-pond and suddenly is shown the sea. It makes me a little breathless, and yet it fills me with elation. I don't want to die, I want to live. I'm beginning to feel a new courage. I feel like one of those old sailors who set sail for undiscovered seas and I think my soul hankers for the unknown.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Thinking #Sea #Ducks

To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Courage #Character #Giving

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

#Believe #People #Guarantees

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

#Life #Famous Love #Art

You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Happiness #Eye #Giving

It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Victory #Might #Defeat

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Achievement #Poetry #Mind

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Women #Men #Faults

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

#Time #Past #Thinking

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Friendship #Children

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Writing #Broken #Habit

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Inspirational #Life #Happiness

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Funny #Reading #Book

I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

#Reading #Book #Reading Books

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

#Inspirational #Life #Friendship