W. Somerset Maugham

Poor Henry [James], he’s spending eternity wandering round and round a stately park and the fence is just too high for him to peep over and they’re having tea just too far away for him to hear what the countess is saying.

I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked . . . it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.

The tragedy of love is indifference.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

It has been said that good prose should resemble the conversation of a well-bred man.

Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.

A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favorite form of self- indulgence.

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

The drama is make-believe. It does not deal with truth but with effect.

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.

Failure makes people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man.

So long as some are strong and some are weak, the weak will be driven to the wall.

There’s nothing the world loves more than a readymade description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves all trouble in future.

The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.

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

Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way.

Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination; it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with other men an escape from reality, but the means by which he accedes to it.

I wonder how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own thoughts.

In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four.

In the conduct of life we make use of deliberation to justify ourselves in doing what we want to do.

There’s no one so transparent as the person who thinks he’s devilish deep.

The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it; the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.

If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn’t be so grossly over-populated as it is now.

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

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.

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

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

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

When a man’s in love, he at once makes a pedestal-of the Ten Commandments and stands on the top of them with his arms akimbo. When a womans in love she doesnt care two straws for Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not.

Women’s hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two.

Love is not always blind and there are few things that cause greater wretchedness than to love with all your heart someone who you know is unworthy of love.

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

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

The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life worth living.

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance.

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.