W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

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

There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

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

The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

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

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

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

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan't make the mistakes I've made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I'm going to bring up my daughter so that she's free and can stand on her own feet. I´m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he's willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life.

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

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

Life isn't long enough for love and art.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

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

Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.

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.

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.

He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.

The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous — on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. It is failure that makes people bitter and cruel.

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.

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

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

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

There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?

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

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the center of the world.

Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled in them, and each time they come into contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.

You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.

The nature of men and women - their essential nature - is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you.

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

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

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to find in their butlers.

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The end of culture is right living

I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

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.

Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.

Tolerance is only another name for indifference.

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.

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.