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
art honesty practice
In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.
pain children artist
It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production to the pains of childbirth.
beautiful art perfect
Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
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.
art talent pursuit
There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.
beautiful dance art
The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost of unending effort but, with all the forces of gravity against it, a fleeting poise in mid-air, a lovely attitude worthy to be made immortal in a bas-relief, it was lost as soon as it was gained and there remained no more than the memory of an exquisite emotion. So life, lived variously and largely, becomes a work of art only when brought to its beautiful conclusion and is reduced to nothingness in the moment when it arrives at perfection.
artist soul produce
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul.
appreciation art long
I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists.
desire directors artistic
There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment.
art purpose use
Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
art humility men
Art, if it is to be reckoned as one of the great values of life, must teach man humility, tolerance, wisdom and magnanimity. The value of art is not beauty, but right action.
art action morality
Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia.
art mean imagination
Yet magic is no more than 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.