W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 20

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• Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?" "No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Voice, Strange, Despise

  W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Painted Veil”, p.113, Random House

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• Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil of the world? If the evils we suffer are the result of sins committed in our past lives, we can bear them with resignation and hope that if in this one we strive toward virtue out future lives will be less afflicted.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Past, Evil, Suffering

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• He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Stupid, Romance, Heartless

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.471, Diversion Books

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• It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Country, Children, Pain

  "The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection".

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• You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.' Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Christian, Mother, Father

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.236, Diversion Books

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• The arguments for immortality, weak when you take them one by one, are no more cogent when you take them together... For my part, I cannot see how consciousness can persist when its physical basis has been destroyed, and I am too sure of the interconnection of my body and my mind to think that any survival of my my consciousness apart from my body would be in any sense a survival of myself.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Thinking, Survival, Mind

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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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• I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Appreciation, Art, Long

  W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.22, Random House

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• D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Jobs, Children, Struggle

  W. Somerset Maugham (2013). “The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection”, p.2171, eBookIt.com

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• There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Distance, Thinking, Littles

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.363, Diversion Books

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• In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Art, Honesty, Practice

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• Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Art, Purpose, Use

  W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.264, Random House

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• There is only one way to win hearts and that is to make oneself like unto those of whom one would be loved.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Heart, Winning, Would Be

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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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• 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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• The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Artist, Atheism, Criminals

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• Everyone had some defect, or body or of mind: he thought of all the people he had known (the whole world was like a sick house and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he saw a long procession, deformed in body, warped in mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak lungs, and some with illness of the spirit, languor of will, or craving for liquor. At that moment he felt a holy compassion for them all. …The words of the dying God crossed his memory: Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Memories, Heart, Compassion

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• Just as the painter thinks with his brush and paints the novelist thinks with his story.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Thinking, Novelists, Fiction

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• Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Greatness, Men

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

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• It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Government, Needs, May

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

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• The humorist has a good eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Humor, Eye, Doe

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• There is no more merit in being able to attach a correct description to a picture than in being able to find out what is wrong with a stalled motorcar. In each case it is special knowledge.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Knowledge, Special, Able

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• If truth is a value it is because it is true and not because it is brave to speak it.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Truth, Brave, Speak

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• The inclination to digress is human. But the dramatist must avoid it even more strenuously than the saint must avoid sin, for while sin may be venial, digression is mortal.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Saint, May, Sin

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

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• I knew that suffering did not enoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things...it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Selfish, Men, Suffering Of Others

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

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