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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMThe most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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If 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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
As the cosmos are in place, so be it with your life.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in England you get neither: you’re ground down by convention. You can’t think as you like and you can’t act as you like. That’s because it’s a democratic nation. I expect America’s worse.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
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 MAUGHAM -
We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM