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W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 12

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Heart, Men, Cynical

It is astonishing how many books I find there is no need for me to read at all.

W. Somerset Maugham
Book, Needs, Astonishing

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Lovely, Self Pity, Get Up

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Inspirational, Life, Beautiful
W. Somerset Maugham (1941). “the Gentleman in the Parlour”

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Character, Personality, Quality
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me.

W. Somerset Maugham
Faults, Sin, Shocked
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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.

W. Somerset Maugham
Men, Community, Culture

Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.

W. Somerset Maugham
Dirty, Hands, Grace

You see, money to you means freedom; to me it means bondage.

W. Somerset Maugham
Mean, Bondage

For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay.

W. Somerset Maugham
Sports, Children, School

I don't understand anything. Life is so strange. I feel like some one who's lived all his life by a duck-pond and suddenly is shown the sea. It makes me a little breathless, and yet it fills me with elation. I don't want to die, I want to live. I'm beginning to feel a new courage. I feel like one of those old sailors who set sail for undiscovered seas and I think my soul hankers for the unknown.

W. Somerset Maugham
Thinking, Sea, Ducks

Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.

W. Somerset Maugham
People, Wells, Knows

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

W. Somerset Maugham
Writing, Crafts, Difficult

You cannot write well or much (and I venture the opinion that you cannot write well unless you write much) unless you form a habit.

W. Somerset Maugham
Writing
"The Summing Up".

Comedy appeals to the collective mind of the audience and this grows fatigued; while farce appeals to a more robust organ, their collective belly.

W. Somerset Maugham
Mind, Farce, Comedy
W. Somerset Maugham (2010). “The Summing Up”, p.142, Random House

Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.

W. Somerset Maugham
Art, Mean, Imagination
W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Magician: A Novel”, p.67, The Floating Press

Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

W. Somerset Maugham
Funny, Time, Elderly
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Destiny, Puppets, Strings
"Somerset Maugham". Book by Ted Morgan, 1980.

What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.

W. Somerset Maugham
Mean, Men, Atheism
"A Writer's Notebook (1901)". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, 1946.

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.

W. Somerset Maugham
Writing, Broken, Habit
W. Somerset Maugham (2010). “The Summing Up”, p.179, Random House

You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.

W. Somerset Maugham
Cynical, Criticism, Doe
W. Somerset Maugham (1930). “Cakes and Ale”

There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.

W. Somerset Maugham
Wall, Mountain, Depth
W. Somerset Maugham (2015). “On a Chinese Screen”, p.62, Simon and Schuster

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Beauty, Beautiful, Fashion
W. Somerset Maugham (2006). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.53, Courier Corporation

Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness.

W. Somerset Maugham
Kindness, Goodness, Loving Kindness
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly; he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service.

W. Somerset Maugham
Speaks French, Cards, Diplomatic
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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