W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

The ideal has many names and beauty is but one of them.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it’s a mistake to make a habit of it.

Milk is very nice, especially with a drop of brandy in it, but the domestic cow is only too glad to be rid of it. A swollen udder is very uncomfortable

I will continue to write moral stories in rhymed couplets. But I should be thrice a fool if I did it for aught but my own entertainment.

Dying is a dull, dreary affair. my advice is that you have nothing whatever to with it.

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.

A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her . . . but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.

Why did you look at the sunset?'Philip answered with his mouth full:Because I was happy.

It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

No egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul.

She says it's really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate.

There are three secrets to writing a novel. Unfortunately nobody knows what they are.

It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

I thought with melancholy how an author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart’s blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.

Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

She had never felt so light of heart and it seemed to her as though her body were a shell that lay at her feet and she pure spirit. Here was Beauty.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.

Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.

One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her.

The greatest tragedy of life is not that men perish but that they cease to love.

I do not believe that I am a vindictive man, but when the immortal gods take a hand in the matter it is pardonable to observe the results with complacency.

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.

She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?

A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.

You can never know enough about your characters

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.

I prefer a loose woman to a selfish one and a wanton to a fool.

The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain just as the loveliest melodies are not too sublime to be expressed by notes.

Benevolence is often very peremptory.

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

A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves what everyone else believes.

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?

The path to Salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge.

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

I only wanted to suggest to you that self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling.

Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can.

The silence was enchanting. Infinite space seemed to enter it, and my spirit, alone with the stars, seemed capable of any adventure.

You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.

Dinner a time when . . . one should eat wisely but not too well and talk well but not too wisely.

How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you for it was the illusion they loved.

Schools are made for the average. The holes are all round, and whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. One hasn't time to bother about anything but the average.