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W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 6

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When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.

When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.

W. Somerset Maugham
Women, Love You, Soul
W. Somerset Maugham (2012). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.109, Courier Corporation

I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene. It is the white-collar proletariat. They do not go to university to acquire culture but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious . They are scum.

W. Somerset Maugham
Jobs, Mean, Beer

The tragedy of love is indifference.

W. Somerset Maugham
Love, Life, Tragedy
The Trembling of a Leaf ch. 4 (1921)

I'd sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.

W. Somerset Maugham
Looks, Crosses, Bus
W. Somerset Maugham (1939). “Christmas Holiday”

When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself?

W. Somerset Maugham
Atheist, Sacrifice, Men

It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.

W. Somerset Maugham
Helping Others, Men, Practice

Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion.

W. Somerset Maugham
Passion, Self, Might
W. Somerset Maugham (2013). “The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection”, p.2043, eBookIt.com

The humour of Dostoievsky is the humour of a barloafer who ties a kettle to a dog's tail.

W. Somerset Maugham
Dog, Ties, Tails

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.

W. Somerset Maugham
Mind, Commonplace
W. Somerset Maugham (2013). “The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection”, p.1397, eBookIt.com

People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.

W. Somerset Maugham
Beautiful, Dog, Names
W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.264, The Floating Press

Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.

W. Somerset Maugham
Men, Suffering, Want
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Use, Want, Ethics
W. Somerset Maugham (2010). “The Summing Up”, p.49, Random House

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.

W. Somerset Maugham
Inspirational, Success, Congratulations
Summing Up (1938) p. 187

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.

W. Somerset Maugham
Perfection, Dull, Irony
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?

W. Somerset Maugham
Inspirational, Teaching, Learning

As the cosmos are in place, so be it with your life.

W. Somerset Maugham
Life, Cosmos

When things are at their worst, I find something always happens.

W. Somerset Maugham
Entrepreneur, Negativity, Human Bondage
W. Somerset Maugham (2016). “Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics)”, p.439, Diversion Books

A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.

W. Somerset Maugham
Hands, Two, Bird

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

W. Somerset Maugham
Inspirational, Life, Advice
Moon and Sixpence (1919) ch. 4

Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.

W. Somerset Maugham
Love, Men, Madly In Love
W. Somerset Maugham (2009). “The Painted Veil”, p.52, Random House

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Inspirational, Life, Character
Moon and Sixpence (1919) ch. 17

For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.

W. Somerset Maugham
Atheist, Believe, Common Sense
"The Summing Up".

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Birthday, Time, Age
W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

W. Somerset Maugham
Illusion, Resignation, Asks

Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.

W. Somerset Maugham
Home, Men, Land
W. Somerset Maugham (2013). “The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection”, p.1429, eBookIt.com

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