W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham CHwas a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth25 January 1874
believe giving desire
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.
want ridiculous given
Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.
beautiful art perfect
Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
funny reflection giving
The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.
mistake advice bats
I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
art passion rooms
Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.
art sake advertising
Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.
dark night giving
Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter's mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.
differences dislike-me wells
You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me now.
believe men thinking
I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.
dirty hands grace
Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.
heart looks doe
It does the heart good to look at you.
work believe expected
Success. I don't believe it has any effect on me. For one thing I always expected it.
fighting your-side law
There was once a professor of law who said to his students. When you are fighting a case, if you have facts on your side hammer them into the jury, and if you have the law on your side hammer it into the judge. But if you have neither the facts nor the law, asked one of his listeners? Then hammer the hell into the table, answered the professor.