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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMAny society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.
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The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity.
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A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.
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People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity.
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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.
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He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
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We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
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Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.
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He is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.
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Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
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There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one’s means of livelihood.
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I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. It’s illimitable. It’s such a happy life. There’s only one thing like it, when you’re up in a plane by yourself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds you.
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I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart’s in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
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You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.
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She loved three things – a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.
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Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.
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Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
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Life isn’t long enough for love and art.
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But it may be that the way of life that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength and sweetness of his character may have an ever-growing influence over his fellow men so that, long after his death perhaps, it may be realized that there lived in this age a very remarkable creature.
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You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
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In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They’re both very good things.
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How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.
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Men seek but one thing in life — their pleasure.
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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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Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.
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Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM