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bcdfe3f
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Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1bfd8a8
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I could have forgiven it if he'd fallen desperately in love with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought that natural. I shouldn't really have blamed him. I should have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and women are so unscrupulous.
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men
women
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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325469b
|
Supposing there is no life everlasting. Think what it means if death is really the end of all things. They've given up all for nothing. They've been cheated. They're dupes." Waddington reflected for a little while. "I wonder if it matters what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. 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 ..
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religion
life
philosophy
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W Somerset Maugham |
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fc66ae5
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I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of. I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. It's illimitable. It's such a happy life. There's only one thing like it, when you're up in a plane by yourself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds you. You're intoxicated by the boundless space.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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098fc19
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A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.
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motherhood
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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eebc67f
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A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.
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proverbs
proverb
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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bd76f8a
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Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter's mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b0b501e
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Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. Freedom! Not only freedom from a bond that irked, and a companionship which depressed her; freedom, not only from the death which had threatened, but freedom from the love that had degraded her; freedom from all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit, ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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ac0abfb
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Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
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artists
inspiration
imagination
art-and-life
soul
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e7d9ee5
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When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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31aabb3
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I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5045b9d
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The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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57c6d94
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The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistical 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.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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25b422c
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Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e16560c
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Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of them, and we hate those upon whom we have no such influence.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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29a8176
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I happen to think we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8004d4e
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I'd sooner be smashed into a mangled pulp by a bus when we cross the street than look forward to a life like yours.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a234934
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the human race, like drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a9a809c
|
We Americans... like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.
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change
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a151d25
|
Women are strange little beasts,' he said to Dr. Coutras. 'You can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, it is one of the most absurd illusions of Christianity that they have souls.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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87f4951
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Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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68cf767
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It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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fc0ed57
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How strange was the relation between parents and children! When they were small the parents doted on them, passed through agonies of apprehension at each childish ailment, and the children clung to their parents with love and adoration; a few years passed, the children grew up, and persons not of their kin were more important to their happiness than father or mother. Indifference displaced the blind and instinctive love of the past. Their m..
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maugham
parents
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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05ced26
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But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.
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unhappiness
pain
suffering
life
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4df47ee
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He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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efa0af0
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He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.
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heroism
life
hard
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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180c0d4
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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."
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virtue
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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180e68b
|
The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.
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humor
british
authors
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0ddea77
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It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I dr..
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morality
ethics
selfishness
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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ede928e
|
He exulted in the possession of himself once more; he realized how much of the delight of the world he had lost when he was absorbed in that madness which they called love; he had had enough of it; he did not want to be in love anymore if love was that.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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213c1ff
|
In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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7872ff9
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The new-born child does not realize that his body is more a part of himself than surrounding objects, and will play with his toes without any feeling that they belong to him more than the rattle by his side; and it is only by degrees, through pain, that he understands the fact of the body. And experiences of the same kind are necessary for the individual to become conscious of himself; but here there is the difference that, although everyon..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9325a55
|
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.
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women
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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40fb030
|
I suppose it was the end of the world for her when her husband and her baby were killed. I suppose she didn't care what became of her and flung herself into the horrible degradation of drink and promiscuous copulation to get even with life that had treated her so cruelly. She'd lived in heaven and when she lost it she couldn't put up with the common earth of common men, but in despair plunged headlong into hell. I can imagine that if she co..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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f6787ce
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Everyone had some defect, or body or of mind: he thought of all the people he had known (the whole world was like a sick house and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he saw a long procession, deformed in body, warped in mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak lungs, and some with illness of the spirit, languor of will, or craving for liquor. At that moment he felt a holy compassion for them all. ...The words of the dying..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b07a0c5
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Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy (conscience) within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd.
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conscience
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9b6c40f
|
and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3152529
|
To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am willing to excuse a thousand faults.
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quote
the-moon-an-sixpence
w-somerset-mauham
faults
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0592238
|
They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her father's affection, he had never counted in the house and had been taken for granted, the bread-winner who was a little despised because he could prov..
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fathers
family
love
parents
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c2cd2f2
|
The ideal has many names and beauty is but one of them.
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names
ideal
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b47e331
|
There are many foolish people in the world and when a man in a rather high position puts on no frills, slaps them on the back, and tells them he'll do anything in the world for them, they are very likely to think him clever.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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db5b0b2
|
Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment.
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passion
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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57834cd
|
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.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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80e98be
|
Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
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W. Somerset Maugham |