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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| bcf6364 | I've always felt that there was something pathetic in the founders of religion who made it a condition of salvation that you should believe in them. It's as though they needed your faith to have faith in themselves. They remind you of those old pagan gods who grew wan and faint if they were not sustained by the burnt offerings of the devout. Advaita doesn't ask you to take anything on trust; it asks only that you should have a passionate cr.. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 02dbd5a | 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.. | W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham | ||
| ce67d31 | To the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul. | W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham | ||
| f7485ef | He did not know what he sought or what his journeys would bring him; but he had a feeling that he would learn something new about life and gain some clue about the mystery that he had solved only to find more mysterious. And even if he found nothing he would allay the unrest which gnawed his heart. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| ad5007a | To Lucy it was an admirable study, the contrast between the man who threw his whole soul into a certain aim, which he pursued with a savage intensity, knowing that the end was a dreadful, lonely death; and the man who was making up his mind deliberately to gather what was beautiful in life, and to cultivate its graces as though it were a flower garden. "And the worst of it is that it will all be the same in a hundred years," said Dick. "We .. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 683540d | When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself? At best he can only sacrifice his only begotten son. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 0d4d0d2 | I'm sure I'm very grateful to you, Philip. I'm very much flattered at your proposal.' 'Oh, don't talk rot. You will marry me, won't you?' 'D'you think we should be happy?' 'No. But what does that matter? | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| ff87510 | You should read Spanish,' he said. 'It is a noble tongue. It has not the mellifluousness of Italian--Italian is the language of tenors and organ-grinders--but it has grandeur: it does not ripple like a brook in a garden, but it surges tumultuous like a mighty river in a flood. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| ffd8f68 | Pensei para mim que os homens sao mais interessantes do que os livros, mas tem o defeito de nao podermos saltar certos capitulos. Temos, no minimo, de folhear o livro inteiro para encontrar uma pagina que valha a pena. E nao podemos coloca-los numa estante e pegar neles quando nos apetece; e preciso le-los quando a oportunidade se apresenta, a semelhanca de um livro de uma biblioteca itinerante que e muito procurado, e temos de esperar a no.. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| e334480 | But to secure freedom, entire and absolute freedom, she was ever ready to make any sacrifice: ties affected her with a discomfort that seemed really akin to physical pain, and she avoided them--ties of family or of affection, ties of habit or of thought--with all the strenuousness of which she was capable. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| fb5f9da | How happy life would be if an undertaking retained to the end the delight of its beginning, if the dregs of a cup of wine were as sweet as the first sip. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 113420a | Malko zdrav razum, malko t'rpimost, malko chuvstvo za khumor i ti shche otkriesh, che se chuvstvash mnogo udobno na tazi planeta. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 219d77c | I'm only twenty-five. If I've made a mistake I have time to correct it. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| bca595c | I tried to picture to myself the mosque before the Christians laid their desecrating hands upon it. | W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham | ||
| 4df5232 | Era muito simples o que ele ensinava.Dizia que somos maiores do que pensamos, e que a sabedoria e o caminho da liberdade. Para nos salvarmos nao e necessario a pessoa retirar-se do Mundo, mas apenas renunciar a individualidade. O trabalho feito desinteressadamente purifica o espirito, e os deveres sao oportunidades dadas ao homem para abafar a propria individualidade e identificar-se com a individualidade universal. (...)'' Dificil e andar.. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| d1e00dc | The belief of God is not a matter of common sense, or logic, or argument, but of feeling. It is as impossible to prove the existence of God as to disprove it. I do not believe in God. I see no need of such an idea. It is incredible to me that there should be an after-life. I find the notion of future punishment outrageous and of future reward extravagant. I am convinced that when I die, I shall cease entirely to live; I shall return to the .. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| a66da67 | 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. | human life man | W. Somerset Maugham | |
| 1f08253 | One of the odd things about Stendhal is that though he was always on the watch lest anyone made a fool of him, he was constantly making a fool of himself. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| fd0b6b0 | None was more indifferent to convention than herself, and the marriage tie especially excited her ridicule, but she despised entirely those who disregarded the by-laws of society, yet lacked courage to suffer the results of their boldness: to seek the good opinion of the world, and yet secretly to act counter to its idea of decorum, was a very contemptible hypocrisy. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 45441ed | Even here is something sad and terrible. But the impression is fleeting, and serves only to give a greater acuteness to the enjoyment of the moment. It is like the sadness which you may see in the jester's eyes when a merry company is laughing at his sallies; his lips smile and his jokes are gayer because in that communion of laughter he find himself more intolerably alone. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 78ed58e | he was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously he thanked god he no longer believed in him." | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| ffd6161 | Human beings filled him with disgust. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 868fdc3 | He was interested in the human side of that struggle to express something which was so obscure in the man's mind that he was become morbid and querulous. Philip felt vaguely that he himself was himself in the same case, but with him it was the conduct of his life as a whole that perplexed him. That was his means of self-expression, and what he must do with it was not clear. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 08d5fa9 | The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned. It | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 49f0510 | laugh while you've got the chance, you won't laugh much when you're dead and buried. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 25f356e | I have great affection for you, Roy" I answered, "but I don't think you are the sort of person I'd care to have breakfast with." | clever wit | W. Somerset Maugham | |
| 0d3a52b | Owing to the rise of prices Mrs. Hudson was able to get more for her rooms than in my day, and I think in her modest way she was quite well off. But of course people wanted a lot nowadays. "You wouldn't believe it, first I 'ad to put in a bathroom, and then I 'ad to put in the electric light, and then nothin' would satisfy them but I must 'ave a telephone. What they'll want next I can't think." | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 7cb3aa9 | The tragedy of love is not death or separation. How long do you think it would have been before one or other of them ceased to care? Oh, it is dreadfully bitter to look at a woman whom you have loved with all your heart and soul, so that you felt you could not bear to let her out of your sight, and realise that you would not mind if you never saw her again. The tragedy of love is indifference. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| f93df8f | He saw that nothing was good and nothing was evil; things were merely adapted to an end. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 82387d3 | We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbors. 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 meaning for them as for himself. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| b1ca7e1 | After all, it's not my fault. I can't force myself to believe. If there is a God after all and he punishes me because I honestly don't believe in Him I can't help it. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 77fb926 | How much easier life would be if people were all black or all white and how much simpler it would be to act in regard to them! | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 062527b | Schools are made for the average. The holes are all round, and whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. One hasn't time to bother about anything but the average. | intelligence learning schools | W. Somerset Maugham | |
| d74a4f8 | art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 631a6f3 | art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand. But | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 4c834e7 | Have you ever thought of death?" "Why should I? It doesn't matter." | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| a7d2c38 | The important thing is character. It's my character I've got to mould. I'm sure one can do anything with oneself if one tries. It's only a matter of will. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| e06d8af | I am a man blessed with vivid senses, and I have indulged them with all my soul. I have to pay the penalty now, and I am ready to pay. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 1f6c3b8 | A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn't quite know what. | unitarianism | W. Somerset Maugham | |
| 47f4a72 | There was a curious sense of apprehension in her heart. He was certainly very handsome. It would be thrilling to be the wife of the Governor of Bengal and very nice to be grand and have the ADCs [Aide de Camps] running about to do one's bidding | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| e98cb50 | Well, Henry, if I were you I wouldn't worry", said the lawyer. "My belief is that your boy's born lucky, and in the long run that's better than to be born clever or rich." | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 80d3d8a | But the river, though it flowed so slowly, had still a sense of movement and it gave one a melancholy feeling of the transitoriness of things. Everything passed, and what trace of its passage remained? It seemed to Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing.. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 39be2a2 | And if I am not mistaken here is the secret of the greatness that was Spain. In Spain it is men that are the poems, the pictures and the buildings. Men are its philosophies. They lived, these Spaniards of the Golden Age; they felt and did; they did not think. Life was what they sought and found, life in its turmoil, its fervour and its variety. Passion was the seed that brought them forth and passion was the flower they bore. But passion al.. | art character creation-of-man literature spaniards the-golden-age the-last-word thought | W. Somerset Maugham | |
| 510f116 | Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. | W. Somerset Maugham |