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121551c
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Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honour is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan a..
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W Somerset Maugham |
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48a4c4f
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I do not know what infinite yearning possesses you, so that you are driven to a perilous, lonely search for some goal where you expect to find a final release from the spirit that torments you. I see you as the eternal pilgrim to some shrine that perhaps does not exist. I do not know to what inscrutable Nirvana you aim. Do you know yourself? Perhaps it is Truth and Freedom that you seek, and for a moment you thought that you might find rele..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e6c9bc0
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It was difficult to understand that he would not come into the bungalow again and that when he got up in the morning she would not hear him take his bath in the Suchow tub. He was alive and now he was dead.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2c15059
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When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has meaning for me, and it becomes part of me; I've got out of the book all that's any use to me, and I can't get anything more if I read it a dozen times. You see, it seems to me, one's like a closed bud, and most of what one reads and does has no effect at all; but there are certain things that have a peculiar sig..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0f93799
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I have always been a little disconcerted by the passion women have for behaving beautifully at the deathbed of those they love. Sometimes it seems as if they grudge the longevity which postpones their chance of an effective scene.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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10012a0
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I'm looking for something and I don't quite know what it is. But I know that it's very important for me to know it, and if I did it would make all the difference. Perhaps the nuns know it; when I'm with them I feel that they hold a secret which they will not share with me. I don't know why it came into my head that if I saw this Manchu woman I should have an inkling of what I am looking for. Perhaps she would tell me if she could." "What ma..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9cffaa3
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the hopes that had been cherished there, the bright visions of the future, the flaming passion of youth; the regrets, the disillusion, the weariness, the resignation; so much had been felt in that room, by so many, the whole gamut of human emotion, that it seemed strangely to have acquired a troubling and enigmatic personality of its own.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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894d22a
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Saw everything larger than life size, with the outlines blurred, in a golden mist of sentimentality.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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07bfb1c
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His life had seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength as he realised that it might be measured by something else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an instant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they could not affect him again as they had ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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12e7c5b
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The day broke gray and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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103d605
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Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and t..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3883269
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It amused him sometimes to consider that his friends, because he had a face which did not express his feelings very vividly and a rather slow way of moving, looked upon him as strong-minded, deliberate and cool. 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..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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424e757
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My dear, I don't know that in life it matters so much what you do as what you are. No one can learn by the experience of another because no circumstances are quite the same. If we made rather a hash of things perhaps it was because we were rather trivial people. You can do anything in this world if you're prepared to take the consequences, and the consequences depends on character.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9b297a5
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When I've seen you go into an empty room I've sometimes wanted to open the door suddenly, but I've been afraid to in case I found nobody there.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8b3501c
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Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d75ba4f
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startled the world many years ago by stating in effect that if the amount of pleasure obtained from each be equal there is nothing to choose between poetry and push-pin. Since few people now know what push-pin is, I may explain that it is a child's game in which one player tries to push his pin across that of another player, and if he succeeds and then is able by pressing down on the two pins with the ball of his thumb to lift them off the ..
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benthem
eliot
jeremy-bentham
ludwig-van-beethoven
titian
utilitarianism
george-eliot
pleasure
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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00efe33
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When one reads, and re-reads, , it seems to me that one gets a more convincing, a more definite, impression of the man than from anything one may learn of his life and circumstances; an impression of a man endowed by nature with a great gift blighted by an evil genius, so that, like the agave, no sooner had it put forth its splendid blooming than it withered; a moody, unhappy man tormented by instincts he shrank from with horror; a man con..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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f858bbd
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Roy has always sincerely believed what everyone else believed at the moment.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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27e456c
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Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that 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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f23b3ea
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Life had no meaning. On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment. Philip rem..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5ef70ca
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The silence was enchanting. Infinite space seemed to enter it, and my spirit, alone with the stars, seemed capable of any adventure.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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14c4322
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The fact was that he had ceased to believe not for this reason or the other, but because he had not the religious temperament.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d5f60b2
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I saw that Roy was not inclined to be amused. I was not annoyed, for I am quite used to people not being amused at my jokes. I often think that the purest type of the artist is the humorist who laughs alone at his own jests.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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bfa9905
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it was not a curse upon mankind, but the balm which reconciled it to existence.
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existence
brow
daily-bread
sweat
curse
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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cda6e77
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his experience of life in an office had made him determine never to have anything more to do with one ...
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middle-class
office-space
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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5ec534b
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She did not know why it seemed to her so tragic to cry in her sleep.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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635e8f7
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He had few illusions, for here are some of the things that life had taught him: "Men hate those whom they have injured; men love those whom they have benefited; men naturally avoid their benefactors; men are universally actuated by self-interest; gratitude is a lovely sense of expected benefits; promises are never forgotten by those to whom they are made, usually by those who make them."
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illusions
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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078c53f
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A man's work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, but in his book or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless. No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind. No one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.
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personality
persona
work
facade
society
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a8dc124
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Oh, my dear fellow, if you want to be a gentleman you must give up being an artist. They've got nothing to do with one another. You hear of men painting pot-boilers to keep an aged mother - well, it shows they're excellent sons, but it's no excuse for bad work. They're only tradesmen. An artist would let his mother go to the workhouse.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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bb64147
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He refused tea, but Mrs. Crowley poured out a cup and handed it to him. 'You need not drink it, but I insist on your hoding it in your hand. I hat people who habitually deny themselves things.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3523dcd
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Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honour is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan a..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9c3a765
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He had few illusions, for here are some of the things that life had taught him: "Men hate those whom they have injured; men love those whom they have benefited; men naturally avoid their benefactors; men are universally actuated by self-interest; gratitude is a lovely sense of expected benefits; promises are never forgotten by those to whom they are made, usually by those who make them." --
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illusions
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3d33b74
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It speaks very well for human nature that with the masses of dear friends we have it's only to-day that one of them broke the news to us.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0283722
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Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. (Philip always pretended that he was not lame.) She restored his belief in himself and put healing ointments, as it were, on all the bruises of his soul. 'Why d'you read then?' 'Partly for pleasure, because it's a habit and I'm just as uncomfortable ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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24700ae
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Mr Harrington was a bore. He exasperated Ashenden, and enraged him; he got on his nerves, and drove him to frenzy. But Ashenden did not dislike him. His self-satisfaction was enormous but so ingenuous that you could not resent it; his conceit was so childlike that you could only smile at it.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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501ecb1
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I do not mind odious young men; it is when they are charming that I button up the pockets of my sympathy.
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young-men
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0ac4522
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Larry smiled a trifle ruefully. "Like Rolla [who is?], I've come too late into a world too old. I should have been born in the Middle Ages when faith was a matter of course; then my way would have been clear to me and I'd have sought to enter the order. I couldn't believe. I wanted to believe, but I couldn't believe in a God who wasn't better than the ordinary decent man. The monks told me that God had created the world for his glorificatio..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a7adb06
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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.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b191a4e
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Do you know what I think? I think God has been dead for millions upon millions of years. I think when he took infinity and set in motion the process that has resulted in the universe, he died, and for ages and ages men have sought and worshipped a being who ceased to exist in the act of making existence possible for them.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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694d1f1
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I adore good food as I adore all the other pleasant things of life, and because I have that gift I am able to look upon the future with equanimity." "Why?" asked Alec. "Because a love for good food is the only thing that remains with man when he grows old. Love? What is love when you are five and fifty and can no longer hide the disgraceful baldness of your pate. Ambition? What is ambition when you have discovered that honours are to the pu..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8d10a19
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No pain in love is so hard to bear as that which comes from the impossibility of doing any service from the well-beloved, and no service is so repulsive that love cannot make it delightful and easy.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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6370cf7
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And you dared to go counter to your father's wishes? They should have been a command to you. Give me one reason, only one, why, flinging decency to the winds, you demeaned yourself by becoming a baker.' 'Hunger.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0f55b92
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The devil is a good actor," smiled Domingo."
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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b2fef4c
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I should have known that I wasn't meant for happiness and a life of ease. I have other work to do in the world.
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W. Somerset Maugham |