W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

354 Sourced Quotes

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.

W. Somerset Maugham
What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.

W. Somerset Maugham
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
No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.

W. Somerset Maugham
A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?

W. Somerset Maugham
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.

W. Somerset Maugham
With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love without making a fool of himself.

W. Somerset Maugham
Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.

W. Somerset Maugham
An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.

W. Somerset Maugham
I have been forced to conclude from this that we know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.

W. Somerset Maugham
It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.

W. Somerset Maugham
I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.

W. Somerset Maugham
If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.

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

W. Somerset Maugham
Thank God, I can look at a sunset now without having to think how to describe it

W. Somerset Maugham
Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.

W. Somerset Maugham
He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he knew that she was still a stranger to him and his hungry love was destined ever to remain unsatisfied.

W. Somerset Maugham
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
I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.

W. Somerset Maugham
It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.

W. Somerset Maugham