William Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965)
English playwright, novelist, and short story writer; often published as simply W Somerset Maugham.
Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love...
She gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she out into her answer.
"You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!"
Things don't get any easier by putting them off.
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
The sad Don Quixote of a worthless purpose.
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
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.
She saw shrewdly that the world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress.
Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...
Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.
… habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.