W. Somerset Maugham quotes - page 10

Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither. (W. Somerset Maugham)
When things are at their worst, I find something always happens. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me now. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay... View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity the clichTs that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. The conclusion is obvious you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it, so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment. View quote
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)
She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Our wise old church...has discovered that if you will act as if you believed belief will be given to you; if you pray with doubt, but pray with sincerity, your doubt will be dispelled; if you will surrender yourself to the beauty of that liturgy the power of which over the human spirit has been proved by the experience of the ages, peace will descend upon you. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
He exulted in the possession of himself once more; he realized how much of the delight of the world he had lost when he was absorbed in that madness which they called love; he had had enough of it; he did not want to be in love anymore if love was that. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else. (W. Somerset Maugham)
It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
I happen to think we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Almost all the people who've had the most effect on me I seem to have met by chance, yet looking back it seems as though I couldn't but have met them. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham