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7aeda92
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Conversion may come under many shapes, and it may be brought about in many ways. With some men it needs a cataclysm, as a stone may be broken to fragments by the fury of a torrent; but with some it comes gradually, as a stone may be worn away by the ceaseless fall of a drop of water.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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47b9213
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Philip remembered the story of the Eastern King who, desiring to know the history of man, was brought by a sage five hundred volumes; busy with affairs of state, he bade him go and condense it; in twenty years the sage returned and his history now was in no more than fifty volumes, but the King, too old then to read so many ponderous tomes, bade him go and shorten it once more; twenty years passed again and the sage, old and gray, brought a..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d4fa053
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Without knowing it he drew a very pleasant picture of an affectionate, happy family who lived unpretentiously in circumstances of moderate affluence at peace with themselves and the world and undisturbed by any fear that anything might happen to affect their security. The life he described lacked neither grace nor dignity; it was healthy and normal, and through its intellectual interests not entirely material; the persons who led it were si..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c325f28
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Can there be anything more stupendous than the [Hindu] conception that the universe has no beginning and no end, but passes everlastingly from growth to equilibrium, from equilibrium to decline, from decline to dissolution, from dissolution to growth, and so on to all eternity?" "Which presupposes belief in the transmigration of souls." "It's a belief held by two thirds of the human race." "The fact that a great many people believe somethin..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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fc3041d
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He was left a good deal to himself. He had been inclined to talkativeness, but gradually he became silent. He began to think of the difference between himself and others.
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ostracization
introvert
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b3d410d
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The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.
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meaning
life
razor-s-edge
ripple
river
lake
stone
surface
water
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0f1b6e6
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The idealist withdrew himself, because he could not suffer the jostling of the human crowd; he had not the strength to fight and so called the battle vulgar; he was vain, and since his fellows would not take him at his own estimate, consoled himself with despising his fellows.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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fac21fa
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From a social standpoint the man of science does not exist.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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08e0742
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She would not risk to grow so fond of her home that it was a pain to leave it; she preferred to remain a wayfarer, sauntering through life with a heart keen to detect beauty, and a mind, open and unbiased, ready to laugh at the absurd.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d3d5eed
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Oh, my dear, you musn't be offended just because I've taken away from you the satisfaction of thinking that you have been deceiving me all these months.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9e8a83c
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Perhaps her faults and follies, the unhappiness she had suffered, were not entirely vain if she could follow the path that now she dimly discerned before her, not the path that kind funny old Waddington had spoken of that led nowhither, but the path those dear nuns at the convent followed so humbly, the path that led to peace.
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spiritual
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1bdf528
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Culture is not something you put on like a ready-made suit of clothes, but a nourishment you absorb to build up your personality, just as food builds up the body of a growing boy; it is not an ornament to decorate a phrase, still less to show off your knowledge, but a means, painfully acquired, to enrich the soul.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0458dc2
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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 ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded...
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b09cbfe
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But beauty is not the only thing that makes a woman attractive; indeed, great beauty is often somewhat chilling: you admire, but are not moved.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4f4586d
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Oh, God, send down fire from heaven to consume the blasphemer," said Lawson. "What has nature got to do with it? No one knows what's in nature and what isn't! The world sees nature through the eyes of the artist. Why, for centuries it saw horses jumping a fence with all their legs extended, and by Heaven, sir, they were extended. It saw shadows black until Monet discovered they were colored, and by Heaven, sir, they were black. If we choose..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5515af2
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And what is that going to lead to?" "The acquisition of knowledge," he smiled. "It doesn't sound very practical." "Perhaps it isn't and on the other hand perhaps it is. But it's enormous fun."
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a6ae826
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I've got no mother, no wife, no kids. I had, but my mother's dead, and I lost my wife and my kids when I had my trouble. Women are bitches. It's hard for a chap to live without any affection in his life.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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16dff11
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I don't believe in the god of the Christians who gave his son in order to save mankind. That's a myth. But why should it have arisen if it didn't express some deep-seated intuition in men? I don't know what I believe, because it's instinctive, and how can you describe instinct with words? I have an instinct that the power that rules us, human beings, animals and things, is a dark and cruel power and that everything has to be paid for, a pow..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4ed42ca
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Nature has neither love nor hate, and with indifference smiles upon the light at heart and to the heavy brings a deeper sorrow.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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342798e
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And you call yourself an English gentleman,' she exclaimed, savagely. 'No, that's a thing I've never done in all my life.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a7fb3ae
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A thing that had always struck her about the child was that he seemed so collected. She had never seen him cry. And now she realized that his calmness was some instinctive shame of showing his feelings; he hid himself to weep.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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dac2425
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But on the whole the impression was neither of tragedy nor of comedy. There was no describing it. It was manifold and various; there were tears and laughter, happiness and woe; it was tedious and interesting and indifferent; it was as you saw it: it was tumultuous and passionate; it was grave; it was sad and comic; it was trivial; it was simple and complex; joy was there and despair; the love of mothers for their children, and of men for wo..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6dd7328
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Perhaps his taciturnity hid a contempt for the human race which had abandoned the great dreams of his youth and now wallowed in sluggish ease; or perhaps these thirty years of revolution had taught him that men are unfit for liberty, and he thought that he had spent his life in the pursuit of that which was not worth the finding. Or maybe he was tired out and waited only with indifference for the release of death.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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20a783d
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He was not crying for the pain they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered when they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself because, unable to stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his own accord.
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pain
humiliation
will
power
disappointment
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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77e53d5
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They're like little boys, men. Sometimes of course they're rather naughty and you have to pretend to be angry with them. They attach so much importance to such entirely unimportant things that it's really touching. And they're so helpless. Have you never nursed a man when he's ill? It wrings your heart. It's just like a dog or a horse. They haven't got the sense to come in out of the rain, poor darlings. They have all the charming qualities..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d9faf67
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Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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aaa3290
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Most of these stories are on the tragic side. But the reader must not suppose that the incidents I have narrated were of common occurrence. The vast majority of these people, government servants, planters, and traders, who spent their working lives in Malaya were ordinary people ordinarily satisfied with their station in life. They did the jobs they were paid to do more or less competently,. They were as happy with their wives as are most m..
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characterization
human-nature
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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89f3b90
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It is quite as difficult to fit one's practice to one's precepts as to fit one's precepts to one's practice. Most people act in one way and preach in another. When the fact is brought to their notice, they assert that it is their weakness, and that their desire is to act up to their principles. That is pretence. People act according to their inclinations and adopt principles; because these are generally at variance with their inclinations t..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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cc0250b
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Character? I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half an hour's meditation, because you saw in another way of living a more intense significance. And it required still more character never to regret the sudden step. I wondered if Abraham really had made a hash of life. Is to do what you most want, to live under the conditions that please you, in peace with yourself, to make a hash of life; and ..
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life
self-fulfillment
decisions
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e2c6362
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You know, any man can get any woman he wants if he tries hard enough, there's nothing in that, but once he's got her, only a man who thinks the world of women can get rid of her without humiliating her.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c48740b
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Very few people know where to look for happiness; fewer still find it.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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99526a8
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Why don't you give up drinking?" "Because I don't choose. It doesn't matter what a man does if he's ready to take the consequences. Well, I'm ready to take the consequences. You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it's the only thing I've got left now. What do you think life would be to me without it? Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn for it; and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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dcbcf36
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A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country. This is not so strange when you reflect that 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..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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7990e6f
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The artist gets a peculiar sensation from something he sees, and is impelled to express it and, he doesn't know why, he can only express his feeling by lines and colours. It's like a musician; he'll read a line or two, and a certain combination of notes presents itself to him: he doesn't know why such and such words call forth in him such and such notes; they just do. And I'll tell you another reason why criticism is meaningless: a great pa..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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72b17b5
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I could see that Isabel listened to him with growing exasperation. Larry had no notion that he was driving a dagger in her heart and with his every detached word twisting it in the wound. But when she spoke it was with a faint smile on her lips.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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29bf2f4
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I shall beat you,' he said, looking at her. How else should I know you loved me,' she answered.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5a0334d
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Even though he had sacrificed her and cared nothing for her, even though he was callous and unkind, she loved him.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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ca9c93a
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It was a pity that with his great qualities, his unselfishness and honor, his intelligence and sensibility, he should be so unlovable.
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unlovable
the-painted-veil
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1968a3a
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If the future was so vague it meant perhaps that she was destined never to see it.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e242703
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You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9340ba2
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He knew that she had been dreaming that night and he knew what her dreams were about. She had forgotten them. He forebode to look at her. It gave him a grim, horrible, and rather uncanny sensation to think that a vivid, lacerating life could go on when one sunk in unconsciousness, a life so real that it could cause tears to stream down the face and twist the mouth in woe, and yet when the sleeper woke left no recollection behind.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d7ee5e9
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A sensible person does not read a novel as a task. He reads it as a diversion. He is prepared to interest himself in the characters and is concerned to see how they act in given circumstances, and what happens to them; he sympathizes with their troubles and is gladdened by their joys; he puts himself in their place and, to an extent, lives their lives. Their view of life, their attitude to the great subjects of human speculation, whether st..
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reading
entertainment
skipping
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0caee02
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One idealizes people when they're away, it's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and when one sees them again one's often surprised that one saw anything in them at all.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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725f1df
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Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your father's steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left.
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W. Somerset Maugham |