We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMBut 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.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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The well dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice
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It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.
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Failure make people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man.
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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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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 -
The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?
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Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
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We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
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The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.
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It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.
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 -
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 -
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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The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
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To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM