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W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 16

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There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort.

There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort.

W. Somerset Maugham
Perfect, Comfort, Picnics

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Love, Two, Meat
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.

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

Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter's mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.

W. Somerset Maugham
Dark, Night, Giving

But I am not sure it would contain any short stories. For the short story is a minor art, and it must content itself with moving, exciting and amusing the reader. ...I do not think that there is any (short story) that will give the reader that thrill, that rapture, that fruitful energy which great art can produce.

W. Somerset Maugham
Art, Moving, Thinking

You know, when one's in love,' I said, 'and things go all wrong, one's terribly unhappy and one thinks one won't ever get over it. But you'll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.' What do you mean?' she smiled. Well, love isn't a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You'll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.

W. Somerset Maugham
Mean, Thinking, Sea

I can only guess that it made the world he went back to...strangely without meaning. Though he lived in it, though he even enjoyed it, it remained utterly remote. I think it had lost sense for him. In his heart was the reflection of a lovely dream that he could never quite recall.

W. Somerset Maugham
Change, Dream, Memories

All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity. It is well to keep in with them.

W. Somerset Maugham
Thinking, Mind, Important

The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.

W. Somerset Maugham
Looks

Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.

W. Somerset Maugham
Hero, Talking, People
"A Writer's Notebook" by W. Somerset Maugham, Country Life Press, (p. 196), 1949.

Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.

W. Somerset Maugham
Power, Land, Self Improvement
Address on Laying the Cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument, www.dartmouth.edu. June 17, 1825.

And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance.

W. Somerset Maugham
Wine, Sunset, Rome

The end of culture is right living

W. Somerset Maugham
Culture, Ends

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Truth, Brave, Speak

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.

W. Somerset Maugham
Love, Believe, Men

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

W. Somerset Maugham
Christian, Soul, Atheism
"A Writer's Notebook". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, 1949.

There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment.

W. Somerset Maugham
Desire, Directors, Artistic

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

W. Somerset Maugham
People, Criticism, Want

I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.

W. Somerset Maugham
Men, Thinking, Self

In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.

W. Somerset Maugham
Art, Honesty, Practice

I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.

W. Somerset Maugham
Appreciation, Art, Long
W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.22, Random House

Some American delusions: 1) That there is no class-consciousness in the country. 2) That American coffee is good. 3) That Americans are business-like. 4) That Americans are highly-sexed and that redheads are more highly sexed than others.

W. Somerset Maugham
Country, Travel, Coffee

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Baby, Long, Eras
W. Somerset Maugham (2017). “Plays Volume One”, p.278, Random House

In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.

W. Somerset Maugham
Blessed, Heaven, Use
W. Somerset Maugham (1966). “A Maugham Twelve: Stories selected and with an introduction by Angus Wilson”

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Strength, Strong, Wall
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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