W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 14

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• The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost of unending effort but, with all the forces of gravity against it, a fleeting poise in mid-air, a lovely attitude worthy to be made immortal in a bas-relief, it was lost as soon as it was gained and there remained no more than the memory of an exquisite emotion. So life, lived variously and largely, becomes a work of art only when brought to its beautiful conclusion and is reduced to nothingness in the moment when it arrives at perfection.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beautiful, Dance, Art

  9 Copy quote

• Tolerance is another word for indifference.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Diversity, Tolerance, Social Justice

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

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Decision, Littles, Certain

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

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• There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Matter, Continuation, Species

  W. Somerset Maugham (2011). “A Writer's Notebook”, p.36, Random House

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

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Sunset, Thinking, Thank God

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

  26 Copy quote

• Have common sense and stick to the point.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Common Sense, Sticks, Common

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

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Dignity, Human Bondage, Policemen

  W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.356, Diversion Books

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• You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  People, Laughing, Tolerance

  "The Summing Up". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, 1938.

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• There are many foolish people in the world and when a man in a rather high position puts on no frills, slaps them on the back, and tells them he'll do anything in the world for them, they are very likely to think him clever.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Clever, Men, Thinking

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• Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Inspirational, Stress, Men

  Of Human Bondage ch. 39 (1915)

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• 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.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Love, Heart, Who You Know

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

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• The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil. It is the sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Money, Men, Devil

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• Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute; and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Money, Thinking, Important

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

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Men, Should

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

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• The artist produces for the liberation of his soul.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Artist, Soul, Produce

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

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• You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the wisecrack.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Mean, Long, Razors

  W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.305, Random House

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

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Drama, Believe, Doe

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• Perhaps it would have been possible to see in him a new Prometheus...the hero who for the good of mankind exposes himself to the agonies of the damned...undaunted by failure, by an unceasing effort of courage holding despair at bay, doggedly persistent in the face of self-doubt, which is the artist's bitterest enemy.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Art, Hero, Self

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• Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Jobs, Fear, Hypocrite

  Cakes and Ale (1930) ch. 1

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• There's no one as transparent as the person who thinks he's devilish deep.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Wisdom, Thinking, History

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• 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?

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Heart, Men, Merit

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• We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Beautiful, Country, Aunt

  W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.292, The Floating Press

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• 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.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Mean, Reality, Men

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

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• When we come to judge others it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Eye, Vanity, Judging

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

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• The normal is what you find but rarely. The normal is an ideal. It is a picture that one fabricates of the average characteristics of men, and to find them all in a single man is hardly to be expected.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Character, Men, Average

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

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