Now it is a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. If you utterly decline to make do with what you can get, then somehow or other, you are very likely to get what you want.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMIf 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.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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The essential element of love is a belief in its own eternity.
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The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
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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?
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Death doesn’t affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn’t concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
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Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
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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.
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The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.
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The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
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Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
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It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
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Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.
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It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.
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Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
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Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
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I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
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In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
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There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
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When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably.
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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.
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Men seek but one thing in life — their pleasure.
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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.
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Unfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
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Oh, it’s always the same,’ she sighed, ‘if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.
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Now the answer … is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.
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When a woman loves you she’s not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she’s weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.
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I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM