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38d65a6
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I do not suppose she had ever really cared for her husband, and what I had taken for love was no more than the feminine response to caresses and comfort which in the minds of most women passes for it. It is a passive feeling capable of being roused for any object, as the vine can grow on any tree; and the wisdom of the world recognises its strength when it urges a girl to marry the man who wants her with the assurance that love will follow...
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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65a0d81
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I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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bc88a1a
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When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself?
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christianity
god
religion
sacrifice
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9a8693a
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Why d'you read then?" "Partly for pleasure, and because it's a habit and I'm just as uncomfortable if I don't read as if I don't smoke, and partly to know myself. 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 a 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 ti..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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447b7d4
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You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the wisecrack.
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W. Somerset maugham |
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e3d16d2
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All his plans were suddenly overthrown, and the existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than a dream which would never be realized. He was free once more. Free! He need give up none of his projects, and life still was in his hands for him to do what he liked with. He felt no exhiliration, but only dismay. His heart sank. The future stretched out before him in desolate emptiness. It was as though he had sailed for many years over a g..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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a5c29cf
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It was like making a blunder at a party; there was nothing to do about it, it was dreadfully mortifying, but it showed a lack of sense to ascribe too much importance to it.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1be564a
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They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d428c3f
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It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you cannot get over the idea that pleasures are only of the sense; but, child, a man who dies for his country dies because he likes it as surely as a man eats pickled cabbage because ..
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humor
life
pleasure
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d344cb9
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Wounded vanity can make a woman more vindictive than a lioness robbed of her cubs.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2294afd
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I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows himself? Heaven knows. I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbours. Each one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he communicates with the other prisoners, who form mankind, by conventional signs that have not quite the same me..
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choices-and-consequences
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4e5ffff
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Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?" "No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself."
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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209e94e
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He began to read at haphazard. He entered upon each system with a little thrill of excitement, expecting to find in each some guide by which he could rule his conduct; he felt himself like a traveller in unknown countries and as he pushed forward the enterprise fascinated him; he read emotionally, as other men read pure literature, and his heart leaped as he discovered in noble words what himself had obscurely felt.
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literature
reading
words
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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52f5edb
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Then he saw that the normal was the rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of 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 and 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 a craving for liquor. At this mom..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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e1232d6
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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 of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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864554d
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The officers saluted as she passed and gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette. A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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4b07554
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We are foolish and sentimental and melodramatic at twenty-five, but if we weren't perhaps we should be less wise at fifty.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d61df6b
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I only wanted to suggest to you that self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling.
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sacrifice
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2c22b6d
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Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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68aa840
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With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love without making a fool of himself.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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125f37e
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He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. 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 looks as if they were vi..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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602c727
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The answer was obvious. 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..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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04149a9
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Why do you read then?' Partly for pleasure, because it's a habit and I'm just as uncomfortable if I don't read as if I don't smoke, and partly to know myself. 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 a 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. ...
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reading
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3edc895
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There are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in any way affect he tree. I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of somet..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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c4fb265
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In love one should exercise economy of intercourse. None of us can love for ever. Love will be stronger and will last longer if there are impediments of its gratification. If a lover is prevented from enjoying his love by absence, difficulty of access, or by the caprice or coldness of his beloved, he can find a little consolation in the thought that when his wishes are fulfilled his delight will be intense. But love being what it is, should..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8ee8539
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People don't want reasons to do what they'd like to. They want excuses.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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dc5ecd6
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Yet magic is no more the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love, and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.
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love
magic
will
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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807fefb
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I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should, I never thought myself very lovable.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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3d4d030
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It was strange that Walter with all his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion. Because he had dressed a doll in gorgeous robes and set her in a sanctuary to worship her, and then discovered that the doll was filled with sawdust he could neither forgive himself nor her. His soul was lacerated. It was all make-believe that he had lived on, and when the truth shattered it he thought reality itself was shattered. It was true enou..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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d22680a
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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, and you can only gain a true knowledge of him by inferences from little actions, of which he is unconscious, and from fleeting expressions, which cross his face unknown to him. Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. But in his book or his pict..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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103f11f
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Two little drops in that river that flowed silently towards the unknown; two little drops that to themselves had so much individuality and to the onlooker were but an undistinguishable part of the water.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8946ae4
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The most difficult thing for a wise woman to do is to pretend to be a foolish one.
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maugham
women
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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0911e7f
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One does not really feel much grief at other people's sorrows; one tries, and puts on a melancholy face, thinking oneself brutal for not caring more; but one cannot and it is better, for if one grieved too deeply at other people's tears, life would be unendurable; and every man has sufficient sorrows of his own without taking to heart his neighbour's.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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8b4352e
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As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer, whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people. For if the proper study of mankind is man it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantia..
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2ffad37
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Society tempts me to its service by honours and riches and the good opinion of my fellows; but I am indifferent to their good opinion, I despise honours and I can do very well without riches.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2ee1549
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They don't want clever men; clever men have ideas, and ideas cause trouble; they want men who have charm and tact and who can be counted on never to make a blunder.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9bc6303
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What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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ccf46ea
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Philip got up and knelt down to say his prayers. It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayers were more acceptable to God if he said them in his nightshirt than if he waited till he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for he was beginning to realize that he was a creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9a3e0bc
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I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.
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soul
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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9db0604
|
You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.' Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.
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religion
temptation
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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1a62c93
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You cannot write unless you write much.
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writers
writing
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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2b046a8
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The advantage of living abroad is that, coming in contact with the manners and customs of the people among whom you live, you observe them from the outside and see that they have not the necessity which those who practice them believe. You cannot fail to discover that the beliefs which to you are self-evident to the foreigner are absurd.
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W Somerset Maugham |
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ff0ff5a
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It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
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W. Somerset Maugham |
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633ffe7
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He might have known that she would do this; she had never cared for him, she had made a fool of him from the beginning; she had no pity, she had no kindness, she had no charity. The only thing was to accept the inevitable. The pain he was suffering was horrible, he would sooner be dead than endure it; and the thought came to him that it would be better to finish with the whole thing: he might throw himself in the river or put his neck on a ..
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W. Somerset Maugham |