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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMUnfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.
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It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know.’
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Love is what happens to men and women who don’t know each other.
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Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
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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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They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious . They are scum.
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Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material …
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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.
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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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For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.
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Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
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I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.
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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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Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger.
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I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan’t make the mistakes I’ve made.
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The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
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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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The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?
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You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.
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The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity.
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I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead.
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You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
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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.
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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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Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
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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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM