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45d9b60
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It was difficult for her to preserve that haughty, sullen, and coldly indifferent demeanour that appears to be essential to the mannequin as she sails in with deliberate steps, turns round slowly and, with an air of contempt for the universe equalled only by the camel's, sails out.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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da46f81
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when they found that he was not supercilious they told him long yarns of the distant journeys of their youth.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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bd044ab
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It was not for me to leave the world and retire to a cloister, but to live in the world and love the objects of the world, not indeed for themselves, but for the Infinite that is in them.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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47a2f20
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Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humour and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence.
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man
life
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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22b5066
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we cannot get it out of our heads that there is something comic in taking art so seriously.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2426d38
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Books can't matter much if their authors themselves don't think they matter.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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da5c869
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When my obituary notice at last appears in The Times, and they say: 'What, I thought he died years ago,' my ghost will gently chuckle.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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94f0699
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They thought him reasonable and praised his common sense; but he knew that his placid expression was no more than a mask, assumed unconsciously, which acted like the protective colouring of butterflies; and himself was astonished at the weakness of his will. It seemed to him that he was swayed by every light emotion, as though he were a leaf in the wind, and when passion seized him he was powerless. He had no self-control. He merely seemed ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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978375e
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and then the critics, going back to the novels of his maturity, found that their English had a nervous, racy vigour that eminently suited the matter.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a8011de
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The elect sneer at popularity; they are inclined even to assert that it is a proof of mediocrity;
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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f7535b8
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Life was not so horrible if it was meaningless, and he faced it with a strange sense of power. CIX
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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7fd07fe
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Deprecatingly, fully conscious of his audacity in asking so busy a man to waste his time on a neophyte's puny effort, he begged for criticism and guidance.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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138fca3
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Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue;
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3ebea35
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T'rsia neshcho, bez da znam kakvo tochno. Znaia obache, che za men e mnogo vazhno da go nameria i che nameria li go, shche se uspokoia. Mozhe bi monakhinite go znaiat; kogato s'm s tiakh, chuvstvam, che paziat taina, v koiato ne zhelaiat da me posvetiat. Biakh si vt'lpila, neizvestno zashcho, che kato vidia tazi vasha dama, shche razbera kakvo t'rsia. Ako mozheshe, tia sigurno shcheshe da mi go kazhe. - A zashcho smiatate, che tia shche zna..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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031346b
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It was not of course a thing that the big-wigs cared to have anything to do with. Though ready enough to profit by the activities of obscure agents of whom they had never heard, they shut their eyes to dirty work so that they could put their clean hands on their hearts and congratulate themselves that they had never done anything that was unbecoming to men of honour.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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246c7ff
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Monsieur Foinet got up and made as if to go, but he changed his mind, and, stopping, put his hand on Philip's shoulder. "But if you were going to ask me my advice, I should say: take your courage in both hands and try your luck at something else. It sounds very hard, but let me tell you this: I would give all I have in the world if someone had given me that advice when I was your age and I had taken it." Philip looked up at him with surpris..
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courage
temper
mediocrity
luck
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8314e4c
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Her pain was so great that she could have screamed at the top of her voice. She had never known that one could suffer so much; and she asked herself desperately what she had done to deserve it.
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pain
the-painted-veil
psychology
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2fa65a9
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I'm one of the few persons I ever met who are able to learn from experience.
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learn
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d86b4ee
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Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me, and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe. ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1c8a169
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The only reasonable thing was to accept the good of men and be patient with their faults. The words of the dying God crossed his memory: Forgive them, for they know not what they do. CXXII
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d6270b7
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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. It
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2f42375
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Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. The
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b4d5774
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He was intensely moved by the grandeur of the struggle for life, and the ethical rule which it suggested seemed to fit in with his predispositions. He said to himself that might was right. Society stood on one side, an organism with its own laws of growth and self-preservation, while the individual stood on the other. The actions which were to the advantage of society it termed virtuous and those which were not it called vicious. Good and e..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9214aab
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This did not surprise him, for he was beginning to realise that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5c57bda
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He had never been quite certain whether this action indicated courage or infirmity of purpose.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c915ee1
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And then he felt the misery of his life. It seemed to his childish mind that this unhappiness must go on for ever.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d9b0e81
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I have noticed that when I am most serious people are apt to laugh at me, and indeed when after a lapse of time I have read passages that I wrote from the fullness of my heart I have been tempted to laugh at myself. It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant on an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his str..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4ae0b7d
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Though he believed implicitly everything he saw in print, he had learned already that in the Bible things that said one thing quite clearly often mysteriously meant another.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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14816de
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The wise always use a number of ready-made phrases (at the moment I write 'nobody's business' is the most common), popular adjectives (like 'divine' or 'shy-making'), verbs that you only know the meaning of if you live in the right set (like 'dunch'), which give a homely sparkle to small talk and avoid the necessity of thought. The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device to such perfection and hav..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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056cc07
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She was like a silvery flower of the night that only gave its perfume to the moonbeams.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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7dac1ad
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I do not speak of that greatness which is achieved by the fortunate politician or the successful soldier; that is a quality which belongs to the place he occupies rather than to the man; and a change of circumstances reduces it to very discreet proportions.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3af6183
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For men as a rule, love is but and episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it and importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing it the world, and they are not very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them. They are flattered and excited by them, but have an uneasy ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6f2c246
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He could not show his feelings. People told him he was unemotional: but he knew he was at the mercy of his emotions: an accidental kindness touched him so much that sometimes he did not venture to speak in order not to betray the unsteadiness of his will
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d17b88c
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And thinking over the long pilgrimage of his past he accepted it joyfully. He accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for him; he knew that it had warped his character, but now he saw also that by reason of it he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so much delight. Without it he would never have had his keen appreciation of beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his interest in the varied spectac..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8eec598
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He had the aloofness of manner you often find in those who have lived much alone in unfrequented places...they seem always to hold something back. They have a life in themselves that they keep apart...this hidden life is the only one that signifies to them. And no and then their eyes betray the weariness with the social round into which hazard or the fear of seeming odd has for a moment forced them. They seem then to long for the monotonous..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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817c751
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The most insignificant of Strickland's works suggests a personality which is strange, tormented, and complex; and it is this surely which prevents even those who do not like his pictures from being indifferent to them; it is this which has excited so curious an interest in his life and character.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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db62ee5
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And thinking over the long pilgrimage of his past he accepted it joyfully. He accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for him; he knew that it had warped his character, but now he saw also that by reason of it he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so much delight. Without it he would never have had his keen appreciation of beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his interest in the varied spectac..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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59c5978
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I ought to have lived in the eighteen hundreds,' he said himself. 'What I want is a patron. I should have published my poems by subscription and dedicated them to a nobleman. I long to compose rhymed couplets upon the poodle of a countess. My soul yearns for the love of chambermaids and the conversation of bishops.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a1090eb
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Melville, by his own account, spent four months in the valley. He was well treated. He made friends with a girl called Fayaway, swam and boated with her, and except for his fear of being eaten was happy enough.
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friendship
melville
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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44a56ef
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From the standpoint of what eternity is it better to have read a thousand books than to have ploughed a million furrows?
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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ccb5b42
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Flaubert prided himself on his frankness; it was indeed brutal.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c6c598f
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Iliuziia e, che mladostta e shchastliva, iliuziia na onezi, koito sa ia zagubili; mladite stradat ot bezbroi l'zhlivi predstavi, koito sa im vnushavani, i vseki p't, shchom se dokosnat do istinata, tia gi naraniava. Kato che sa zhertvi na zagovor, zashchoto knigite, koito im se davat da chetat - minali prez podbor i zatova p'lni s idealizirani predstavi - kakto i neshchata, koito chuvat ot po-v'zrastnite - khora, gledashchi nazad k'm minalo..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b0f9d5b
|
The best I can suggest is that when the Absolute manifested itself in the world evil was the natural correlation of good. You could never have had the stupendous beauty of the Himalayas without the unimaginable horror of a convulsion of the earth's crust. The Chinese craftsman who makes a vase in what they call eggshell porcelain can give it a lovely shape, ornament it with a beautiful design, stain it a ravishing colour and give it a perfe..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a773550
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In the midst of life we are in death --one can never tell what may happen.
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W. Somerset Maugham |