W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

1874-1965, British Novelist, Playwright
quotes
71
topics
12
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“Only a mediocre person is always at his best.”
Excellence
“Tolerance is only another name for indifference.”
Tolerance
“Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull.”
Perfection
“The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.”
Beauty
“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
Quotations
“We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.”
Friends and Friendship
“Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way.”
VerifiedA Writer's Notebook (1946), "1941" · evidenceSentiment
“I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.”
Books and Reading
“I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.”
People
“Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.”
Love
“The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.”
Writers and Writing
“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.”
VerifiedOf Human Bondage (1915) · evidenceObstinacy
“You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.”
VerifiedThe Bread-Winner (1930) · evidenceAdultery
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it.”
Youth
“No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.”
Christians and Christianity
“There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action.”
VerifiedOf Human Bondage (1915) · evidenceFreedom
“We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.”
VerifiedThe Summing Up (1938) · evidenceResignation
“You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.”
Laughter
“You can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences.”
Consequences
“Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.”
Association
“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”
Writers and Writing
“Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.”
Common Sense
“Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.”
VerifiedThe Summing Up (1938) · evidenceAge and Aging
“Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.”
VerifiedOf Human Bondage (1915) · evidenceMoney