William Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965)
English playwright, novelist, and short story writer; often published as simply W Somerset Maugham.
The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic.
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.
Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…
Passion doesn't count the cost. ... Passion is destructive.
I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
…we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
But when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
Then there was Somerset Maugham, a grim figure; rat-eyed; dead man cheeked, unshaven; a criminal I should have said had I met him on a bus.
…when you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right…
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.
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 practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.
We are not the same persons this year as last ; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.