W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

354 Sourced Quotes

If truth is a value it is because it is true and not because it is brave to speak it.

W. Somerset Maugham
A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

W. Somerset Maugham
The medical profession is the only one which a man may enter at any age with some chance of making a living.

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
There's nothing the world loves more than a ready-made description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves all trouble in future.

W. Somerset Maugham
The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches make out.

W. Somerset Maugham
Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute; and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi.

W. Somerset Maugham
So long as some are strong and some are weak, the weak will be driven to the wall.

W. Somerset Maugham
Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man.

W. Somerset Maugham
The audience is a very curious animal. It is shrewd rather than intelligent. Its mental capacity is less than that of its most intellectual members.

W. Somerset Maugham
A good story is obviously a difficult thing to invent, but its difficulty is a poor reason for despising it.

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
What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

W. Somerset Maugham
No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman.

W. Somerset Maugham
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.

W. Somerset Maugham
A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community.

W. Somerset Maugham
Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experience he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey.

W. Somerset Maugham
For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.

W. Somerset Maugham
Love is not always blind and there are few things that cause greater wretchedness than to love with all your heart someone who you know is unworthy of love.

W. Somerset Maugham
But the only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you; it may have other and much more profound meanings for the critic, but at second-hand they can be of small service to you.

W. Somerset Maugham
Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened gives it a poignancy, touches a chord, which a piece of acknowledged fiction misses. It is to touch this chord that some authors have done everything they could to give you the impression that they are telling the plain truth.

W. Somerset Maugham
In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.

W. Somerset Maugham
We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights.

W. Somerset Maugham
Illusions are like umbrellas - you no sooner get them than you lose them, and the loss always leaves a little painful wound.

W. Somerset Maugham
When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.

W. Somerset Maugham
It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him.

W. Somerset Maugham
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.

W. Somerset Maugham
Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.

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

W. Somerset Maugham