Quote: It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom: and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assume with their inferiors in order to show them that they are not in the least conscious of any difference in station between them. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene. It is the white-collar proletariat. They do not go to university to acquire culture but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious . They are scum. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: People who ask for your criticism want only praise. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: 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. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: 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. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Only a mediocre person is always at his best. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: The great critic must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: 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 practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress. [William Somerset Maugham]
Quote: Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. [William Somerset Maugham]