W. Somerset Maugham - Beauty Quotes

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The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.

W. Somerset Maugham
The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes; he makes the best of us look like a piece of cheese.

W. Somerset Maugham
Beauty is also a Gift of God, one of the most rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our pleasure.

W. Somerset Maugham
The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.

W. Somerset Maugham
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.

W. Somerset Maugham
Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.

W. Somerset Maugham
Our wise old church...has discovered that if you will act as if you believed belief will be given to you; if you pray with doubt, but pray with sincerity, your doubt will be dispelled; if you will surrender yourself to the beauty of that liturgy the power of which over the human spirit has been proved by the experience of the ages, peace will descend upon you.

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

W. Somerset Maugham
The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for life. Its aim is not beauty but goodness.

W. Somerset Maugham
I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos.

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
Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.

W. Somerset Maugham
Art, if it is to be reckoned as one of the great values of life, must teach man humility, tolerance, wisdom and magnanimity. The value of art is not beauty, but right action.

W. Somerset Maugham