W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.

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.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.

You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognize the inevitable selfishness of humanity.

A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there’s only one way to do that, he must also fool himself.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

I don’t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.