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 MAUGHAMPeople ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
Don’t wait for experience to come to you; go out after experience. Experience is your material.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They’re both very good things.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan’t make the mistakes I’ve made.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
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 -
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
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 MAUGHAM -
The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
But 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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM