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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMA dictator must fool all the people all the time and there’s only one way to do that, he must also fool himself.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly?
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It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
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They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.
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If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
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What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories.
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The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
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.
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People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
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It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
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Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
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To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
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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.
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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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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.
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There’s always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM