To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMTo bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMI 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 MAUGHAMTo recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMI recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMIt was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMIf you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMOne cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMWe are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMWhen a woman loves you she’s not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she’s weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMThere is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMNow it is a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. If you utterly decline to make do with what you can get, then somehow or other, you are very likely to get what you want.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMIf forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMLife isn’t long enough for love and art.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMIn 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 MAUGHAMI’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart’s in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMI 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.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM