W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

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.

They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.

It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.

When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I’m going to bring up my daughter so that she’s free and can stand on her own feet.

I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.

We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.