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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMSimplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
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 -
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger.
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 -
It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know.’
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
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 -
The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM