William Somerset Maugham CH was an English playwright, novelist, and short-story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. Both Maugham’s parents died before he was 10, and the orphaned boy was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. This W Somerset Maugham Quotes will motivate you.
Best W Somerset Maugham Quotes
- 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
- 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
- To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- 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
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The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- The most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- It’s no use crying over spilt milk because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
- The important thing was to love rather than to be loved. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
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The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material … Don’t wait for the experience to come to you; go out after experience. Experience is your material. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger.
- What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them? ~ W. Somerset Maugham
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Only a mediocre person is always at his best. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- Tolerance is only another name for indifference. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- 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
- When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- 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
- “One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham
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There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none? ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief is more powerful in the mature than in the young. ~ W. Somerset Maugham -
The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- 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
- Love is what happens to men and women who don’t know each other. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
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The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- 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
- Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- The well-dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- 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 Quotes
- I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- There are two good things in life – freedom of thought and freedom of action. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
- It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know.’ ~ W. Somerset Maugham