W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 14

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• I like manual labor. Whenever I've got waterlogged with study, I've taken a spell of it and found it spiritually invigorating.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Taken, Study, Found

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• A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Men, Community, Welfare

  W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.77, Random House

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• But there are people who take salt with their coffee. They say it gives a tang, a savour, which is peculiar and fascinating. In the same way there are certain places, surrounded by a halo of romance, to which the inevitable disillusionment you experience on seeing them gives a singular spice. You had expected something wholly beautiful and you get an impression which is infinitely more complicated than any that beauty can give you. It is the weakness in the character of a great man which may make him less admirable but certainly more interesting. Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beautiful, Coffee, Character

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• They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Doe, Firsts, Lovers

  W. Somerset Maugham (2012). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.134, Courier Corporation

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• Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Art, Sake, Advertising

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• He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Passion, Ideas, Mad

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.418, Diversion Books

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• The Riviera isn't only a sunny place for shady people.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  People, Shady, Sunny

  "Strictly Personal". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, Doubleday, Doran and co., inc., p. 156, 1941.

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• A good story is obviously a difficult thing to invent, but its difficulty is a poor reason for despising it.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Stories, Reason, Poor

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• If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be as overpopulated as it is now.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Wisdom, People, Intelligence

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• It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly; he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Speaks French, Cards, Diplomatic

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Love, Age, Aging

  The Circle

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• Great writers create; writers of smaller gifts copy

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Copies, Great Writers

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• Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Want, Ridiculous, Given

  W. Somerset Maugham (2012). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.108, Courier Corporation

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• When some incident has shattered the career you’ve mapped out for yourself, a folly, a crime or a misfortune, you mustn’t think you’re down and out. It may be a stroke of luck, and when you look back years later you may say to yourself that you wouldn’t for anything in the world exchange the new life disaster has forced upon you for the dull, humdrum existence you would have led if circumstances hadn’t intervened.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Thinking, Years, Careers

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• No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Character, Giving

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• I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Regret, Hands, Soul

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• I never met an author who admitted that people did not buy his book because it was dull.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Book, Reading, People

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Young Writers, Trouble

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• On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it, so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Stars, Men, Space

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• Culture is not just an ornament; it is the expression of a nation's character, and at the same time it is a powerful instrument to mould character. The end of culture is right living.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Life, Powerful, Character

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• I wonder how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own thoughts.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Faces, Wonder, Wit

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Judging, Concerned

  W. Somerset Maugham (2014). “The Great Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham: One of the Finest Writers of Short Stories Who Ever Lived”, p.328, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Common Sense, Novelists, Belief

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• Tolerance is another word for indifference.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Diversity, Tolerance, Social Justice

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• There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Matter, Continuation, Species

  W. Somerset Maugham (2011). “A Writer's Notebook”, p.36, Random House

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