You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognize the inevitable selfishness of humanity.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMThere are two good things in life – freedom of thought and freedom of action.
More W. Somerset Maugham Quotes
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There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
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We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
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If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
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Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
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We 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 MAUGHAM -
To 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 MAUGHAM -
You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM -
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
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When you’re eighteen your emotions are violent, but they’re not durable.
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I 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?
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Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
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He is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.
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One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.
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’s no good trying to keep up old friendships. It’s painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM