Quotes by Maugham, W. Somerset

"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."

Maugham, W. Somerset on quotations
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"I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation."

Maugham, W. Somerset on resignation
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"We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others."

Maugham, W. Somerset on resignation   

"Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way."

Maugham, W. Somerset on time   

"What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature."

Maugham, W. Somerset on speech   

"The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous, on the contrary, it makes them for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel."

Maugham, W. Somerset on success   

"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."

Maugham, W. Somerset on suffering   

"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."

Maugham, W. Somerset on beauty   

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

Maugham, W. Somerset on beauty   

"No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clich?s that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood."

Maugham, W. Somerset on books - bestsellers
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"I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all."

Maugham, W. Somerset on books - reading   

"Tolerance is only another name for indifference."

Maugham, W. Somerset on tolerance   

"Tradition is a guide and not a jailer."

Maugham, W. Somerset on tradition   

"It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer."

Maugham, W. Somerset on writers and writing   

"The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties."

Maugham, W. Somerset on writers and writing   

"The writer is more concerned to know than to judge."

Maugham, W. Somerset on writers and writing   

"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are."

Maugham, W. Somerset on writers and writing   

"Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous."

Maugham, W. Somerset on writers and writing   

"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it."

Maugham, W. Somerset on youth   

"You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct."

Maugham, W. Somerset on adultery
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"No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul."

Maugham, W. Somerset on christians and christianity   

"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."

Maugham, W. Somerset on class   

"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."

Maugham, W. Somerset on colleges and universities   

"Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult."

Maugham, W. Somerset on common sense   

"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."

Maugham, W. Somerset on common sense   

"You can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences."

Maugham, W. Somerset on consequences   

"It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection."

Maugham, W. Somerset on creativity   

"People who ask for your criticism want only praise."

Maugham, W. Somerset on criticism   

"You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism."

Maugham, W. Somerset on criticism   

"Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist."

Maugham, W. Somerset on death   

"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it."

Maugham, W. Somerset on death   

"The love that last longest is the love that is never returned."

Maugham, W. Somerset on