W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Thank God, I can look at a sunset now without having to think how to describe it

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

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.

She loved three things — a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

[Money] is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

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.

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.

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.

What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.

Life isn't long enough for love and art.

The well dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice

Tolerance is only another name for indifference.

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.

I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

Writing is the supreme solace.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there's only one way to do that, he must also fool himself.

A state of reverie does not avoid reality, it accedes to reality.

All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary-it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.

Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs.

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.

I'd sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.

Imagination grows by exercise.

In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that hides their faces.

When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.

If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one.

A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.

The most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.

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.

There is no need for the writer to eat a whole sheep to be able to tell you what mutton tastes like. It is enough if he eats a cutlet. But he should do that.

Look after your laundry, and your soul will look after itself.

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?