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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.

W. Somerset Maugham

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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Excite Experience Happy High Illuminate Infinity One Plane Rich Spirit Surround
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

Buck Comparision Daughter Easy Grown Inside Know Manage Pretend Simple Steer
As the cosmos are in place, so be it with your life.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Country Life Place
There are two good things in life – freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Action Freedom Good Thing Thought Two
There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

No Nothing Pursuit Talent Terrible Those
Death doesn’t affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn’t concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Cease Concern Death Effect Exist Happen Living
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Achievement Activity Aim Beauty Crown Delicacy End Human Literature Mind Poetry Sublimest
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Belief Common Contrary Excercise Grow Imagination Mature More Powerful Young
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Best Mediocre Only
It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Bad Enough Future Know Past
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Angry Believe God Les Part Than Tolerant
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch’s statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Age Amaze Began Country Eighty Elde Language Learn People Person Statement Young
Failure make people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Character Cruel Failure Improve Make Man People Sucess
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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Beauty Carelessly Feel Force Lighty Lose One People Stand Talk Thing Use Word
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?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Beauty Careless Ebach Lie Like Mood Precious Should Stone Thing Think World
A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Children Concern Harm Life Make Mother

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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It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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