W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

354 Sourced Quotes

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.

W. Somerset Maugham
The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

W. Somerset Maugham
Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs.

W. Somerset Maugham
I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the world.

W. Somerset Maugham
From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.

W. Somerset Maugham
She's wonderful. Tell her I've never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you. Waddington, smiling, translated the question. She says I'm good. As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue, Kitty mocked.

W. Somerset Maugham
I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.

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
You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous.

W. Somerset Maugham
Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.

W. Somerset Maugham
I prefer a loose woman to a selfish one and a wanton to a fool.

W. Somerset Maugham
It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

W. Somerset Maugham
He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

W. Somerset Maugham
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

W. Somerset Maugham
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded.

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

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
It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise…

W. Somerset Maugham
Music-hall songs provide the dull with wit, just as proverbs provide them with wisdom.

W. Somerset Maugham
You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction — the wisecrack.

W. Somerset Maugham
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down hill. It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production to the pains of childbirth.

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
After all, 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.

W. Somerset Maugham
It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.

W. Somerset Maugham
When we come to judge others it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.

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

W. Somerset Maugham
The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too.

W. Somerset Maugham
The tragedy of love is not death or separation. How long do you think it would have been before one or other of them ceased to care? Oh, it is dreadfully bitter to look at a woman whom you have loved with all your heart and soul, so that you felt you could not bear to let her out of your sight, and realize that you would not mind if you never saw her again. The tragedy of love is indifference.

W. Somerset Maugham
Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.

W. Somerset Maugham
She loved three things — a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.

W. Somerset Maugham