Quotes By W. Somerset Maugham

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.

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.

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

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

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

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

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

Tolerance is another word for indifference.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.

When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.

The crown of literature is poetry.

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.

What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.