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3701337
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Its a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, few are chosen.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6926abf
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You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying. You would not be so frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of pleasure: it sounds less shocking, and your mind w..
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values
pleasure
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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fe42b22
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She loved three things -- a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c6a99b5
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The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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348d73d
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There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his shoulders: it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free. His i..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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7284ae7
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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.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2587be9
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She was a fool and he knew it and because he loved her it had made no difference.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6246e86
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From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c77b739
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Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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39382b4
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Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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09dd3e9
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It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
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happiness
victory
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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cd5f0ac
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I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d07864c
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She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?
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unrequited-love
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0ae5bfd
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I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan't make the mistakes I've made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I'm going to bring up my daughter so that she's free and can stand on her own feet. I'm not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he's willing to provide her with board and lodgi..
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sex
women
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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85cda5b
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The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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31e1df3
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It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c385799
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It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9e131e2
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Life isn't long enough for love and art.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1f5e3c7
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I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.
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women
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d0e0175
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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.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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aa0d4db
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I'm afraid you've thought me a bigger fool than I am.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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28738cd
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Why did you look at the sunset?' Philip answered with his mouth full: Because I was happy.
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nature
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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588924c
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He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague . . . He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightening on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passi..
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life
truth
introverts
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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da4a273
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Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant.
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truth
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1d0e174
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There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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fab3b34
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She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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68866bb
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I used to listen to the monks repeating the Lord's Prayer; I wondered how they could continue to pray without misgiving to their heavenly father to give them their daily bread. Do children beseech their earthly father to give them sustenance? They expect him to do it, they neither feel gratitude to him for doing so nor need to, and we have only blame for a man who brings children into the world that he can't or won't provide for. It seemed ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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31a62f9
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For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not the very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them.
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men
women
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6026dc8
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I don't think I shall ever find peace till I make up my mind about things,' he said gravely. He hesitated. 'It's very difficult to put into words. The moment you try you feel embarrassed. You say to yourself: "Who am I that I should bother myself about this, that, and the other? Perhaps it's only because I'm a conceited prig. Wouldn't it be better to follow the beaten track and let what's coming to you come?" And then you think of a fellow ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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310277a
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She says it's really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate.
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marriage
women
love
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5d59bd2
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Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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63f808a
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It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they ..
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nationality
place
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d67bc53
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You know, when one's in love,' I said, 'and things go all wrong, one's terribly unhappy and one thinks one won't ever get over it. But you'll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.' What do you mean?' she smiled. Well, love isn't a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You'll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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713b6b0
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I don't see the use of reading the same thing over and over again,' said Phillip. 'That's only a laborious form of idleness.' But are you under the impression that you have so great a mind that you can understand the most profound writer at a first reading?' I don't want to understand him, I'm not a critic. I'm not interested in him for his sake but for mine.' Why do you read then?' Partly for pleasure, because it's a habit and I'm just as ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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00e3ba7
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She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.
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worth
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9fb799a
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A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4856778
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You don't know the difference between truth and make-believe. You never stop acting. It's second nature to you. You act when there's a party here. You act to the servants, you act to father, you act to me. To me you act the part of the fond, indulgent, celebrated mother. You don't exist, you're only the innumerable parts you've played. I've often wondered if there was ever a you or if you were never anything more than a vehicle for all thes..
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relationships
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c87c0ad
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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 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-seeker to his pipe. I wou..
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travel
bibliomania
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0d38ace
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I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realize how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a03f4b0
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American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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92684d1
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The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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113e409
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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.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6813f45
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They're a funny lot, suicides. I remember one man who couldn't get any work to do and his wife died, so he pawned his clothes and bought a revolver; but he made a mess of it, he only shot out an eye and he got alright. And then, if you please, with an eye gone and a piece of his face blown away, he came to the conclusion that the world wasn't such a bad place after all, and he lived happily ever afterwards. Thing I've always noticed, people..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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00f28e2
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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 |