W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 7

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• I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene. It is the white-collar proletariat. They do not go to university to acquire culture but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious . They are scum.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Jobs, Mean, Beer

  15 Copy quote

• Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Birthday, Time, Age

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

  62 Copy quote

• Comedy appeals to the collective mind of the audience and this grows fatigued; while farce appeals to a more robust organ, their collective belly.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Mind, Farce, Comedy

  W. Somerset Maugham (2010). “The Summing Up”, p.142, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Mistake, Advice, Bats

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.352, Diversion Books

  7 Copy quote

• People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beautiful, Dog, Names

  W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.264, The Floating Press

  18 Copy quote

• We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Want

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

  12 Copy quote

• Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Men, Suffering, Want

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

  23 Copy quote

• The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Atheism, Ineffable, Mystic

  The Moon and Sixpence Ch. 1

  7 Copy quote

• The first duty of a woman is to be pretty, the second is to be well-groomed, and the third is never to contradict.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Women, Firsts, Duty

  4 Copy quote

• As the cosmos are in place, so be it with your life.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Life, Cosmos

  9 Copy quote

• A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Sheep, Order, Imagination

  11 Copy quote

• What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Illusion, Resignation, Asks

  7 Copy quote

• The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Greatness, Men, Pieces

  13 Copy quote

• Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Passion, Self, Might

  W. Somerset Maugham (2013). “The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection”, p.2043, eBookIt.com

  10 Copy quote

• She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Sarcastic, Powerful, Sea

  "A Writer's Notebook". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, 1946.

  9 Copy quote

• Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Love, Men, Madly In Love

  W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Painted Veil”, p.52, Random House

  15 Copy quote

• You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Sex, Adultery, Committed

  68 Copy quote

• When things are at their worst, I find something always happens.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Entrepreneur, Negativity, Human Bondage

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.439, Diversion Books

  10 Copy quote

• It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Helping Others, Men, Practice

  8 Copy quote

• We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Judging, Age, Mature

  W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.26, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Old Habits, Habit, Human Bondage

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.160, Diversion Books

  7 Copy quote

• Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beauty, Simple, Smell

  W. Somerset Maugham (1930). “Cakes and Ale”

  23 Copy quote

• There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Art, Talent, Pursuit

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.539, Diversion Books

  14 Copy quote

• When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself?

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Atheist, Sacrifice, Men

  4 Copy quote

• I was a stray acquaintance whom he had never seem before and would never see again, a wandered for a moment through his monotonous life, and some starved impulse left him to lay bare his soul. I have in this way learned more about men in a night than I could if I had known them for 10 years. If you are interested in human nature, it is one of the greatest pleasures of travel.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Life, Night, Men

  6 Copy quote

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