W. Somerset Maugham quotes - page 9

I'm not only my spirit buy my body, and who can decide how much I, my individual self, am conditioned by the accident of my body? Would Byron have been Byron but for his club foot, or Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky without his epilepsy? (W. Somerset Maugham)
It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
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. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute; and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Boulevard St. Germain. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us. (W. Somerset Maugham)
When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that 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
You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
No gray hairs streak my soul, no grandfatherly fondness there! I shake the world with the might of my voice, and walk-handsome, twentytwoyearold. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
He had doubts about the utility of examination on subjects which had been crammed for the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_to_the_test occasion]. He wanted common sense. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Only a mediocre person is always at his best. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news? View quote
W. 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. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself. (W. Somerset Maugham)
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
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. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of. I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. It's illimitable. It's such a happy life. There's only one thing like it, when you're up in a plane by yourself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds you. You're intoxicated by the boundless space. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham