W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman.

We do not write as we want, but as we can.

Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.

No action is in itself good or bad, but only such according to convention.

Have common sense and stick to the point.

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.

The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.

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.

It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.

The spirit is often most free when the body is satiated with pleasure; indeed, sometimes the stars shine more brightly seen from the gutter than from the hilltop.

The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Boulevard St. Germain.

The audience is not the least important actor in the play and if it will not do its allotted share the play falls to pieces.

For the complete life, the perfect pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity.

It takes two to make a love affair and a mans meat is too often a woman's poison.

It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him.

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.

It has been said that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.

It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.

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.

The end of culture is right living

It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.

The audience is a very curious animal. It is shrewd rather than intelligent. Its mental capacity is less than that of its most intellectual members.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.

It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage

The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.

By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.

A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.

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

Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.

Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.

Genius is talent provided with ideals.

Evil is a necessary part of the order of the universe.

Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man who isn't quite so delightful but a little more sincere.

Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness. It lends grace to the sterner qualities of which this consists.

I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain

But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.

When married people don't get on they can separate, but if they're not married it's impossible. It's a tie that only death can sever.

By the time an actor knows how to act any sort of part he is often too old to act any but a few.

You can never know enough about your characters

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

Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well

It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.

No married man's ever made up his mind until he's heard what his wife has got to say about it.

The tragedy of love is indifference.

There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.

We Americans... like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.

I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer.