It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMThe great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch’s statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.
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 -
It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
if you’d ever had a grown-up daughter you’d know that by comparison a bucking steer is easy to manage. And as to knowing what goes on inside her – well, it’s much better to pretend you’re the simple, innocent old fool she almost certainly takes you for.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
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 -
There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM