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A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.
W. Somerset Maugham
Politicians and Politics
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2
American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
W. Somerset Maugham
Perfection
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3
Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.
W. Somerset Maugham
Freedom
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4
Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
W. Somerset Maugham
Aphorisms and Epigrams
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5
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
W. Somerset Maugham
Beauty
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6
Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
W. Somerset Maugham
Common sense
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7
Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.
W. Somerset Maugham
Common sense
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8
Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
W. Somerset Maugham
Death and Dying
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9
Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
W. Somerset Maugham
Death and Dying
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10
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
W. Somerset Maugham
Excess
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11
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
W. Somerset Maugham
Mother
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12
For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.
W. Somerset Maugham
Fiction
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13
From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
W. Somerset Maugham
Generations
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14
Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writers and Writing
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15
Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
W. Somerset Maugham
Hypocrisy
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16
I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene. It is the white-collar proletariat. They do not go to university to acquire culture but to get a job, and when they have got one, scamp it. They have no manners and are woefully unable to deal with any social predicament. Their idea of a celebration is to go to a public house and drink six beers. They are mean, malicious and envious . They are scum.
W. Somerset Maugham
Colleges and Universities
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17
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
W. Somerset Maugham
Resignation
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18
I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
W. Somerset Maugham
Effort
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19
I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
W. Somerset Maugham
Books and Reading
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20
I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.
W. Somerset Maugham
People
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21
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom: and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too.
W. Somerset Maugham
Freedom
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22
If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
W. Somerset Maugham
Public opinion
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23
If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
W. Somerset Maugham
Nationalities and Nationalism
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24
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it.
W. Somerset Maugham
Youth
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25
It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.
W. Somerset Maugham
Fame
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26
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
W. Somerset Maugham
Suffering
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27
It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.
W. Somerset Maugham
Politicians and Politics
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28
It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.
W. Somerset Maugham
Humour
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29
It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
W. Somerset Maugham
Creativity
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30
It's a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
W. Somerset Maugham
Expectation
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31
It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writers and Writing
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32
Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assume with their inferiors in order to show them that they are not in the least conscious of any difference in station between them.
W. Somerset Maugham
Class
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33
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
W. Somerset Maugham
Obstinacy
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34
Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.
W. Somerset Maugham
Love
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35
Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
W. Somerset Maugham
Nature
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36
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
W. Somerset Maugham
Money
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37
No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
W. Somerset Maugham
Christians and Christianity
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38
No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clich?s that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood.
W. Somerset Maugham
Books - Bestsellers
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39
Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
W. Somerset Maugham
Age and Aging
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40
Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
W. Somerset Maugham
Age and Aging
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41
Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
W. Somerset Maugham
Excellence
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42
People who ask for your criticism want only praise.
W. Somerset Maugham
Critics and Criticism
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43
Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull.
W. Somerset Maugham
Perfection
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44
Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
W. Somerset Maugham
Perfection
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45
Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to find in their butlers.
W. Somerset Maugham
Perfection
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46
Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.
W. Somerset Maugham
Feeling
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47
Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
W. Somerset Maugham
Association
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48
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. Somerset Maugham
Quotation
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49
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous, on the contrary, it makes them for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
W. Somerset Maugham
Success
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50
The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
W. Somerset Maugham
Age and Aging
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51
The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
W. Somerset Maugham
The future
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52
The great critic must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.
W. Somerset Maugham
Literary criticism
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53
The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
W. Somerset Maugham
Beauty
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54
The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writers and Writing
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55
The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
W. Somerset Maugham
Habit
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56
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
W. Somerset Maugham
Misfortunes
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57
The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writers and Writing
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58
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writers and Writing
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59
There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. Somerset Maugham
Freedom
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60
There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
W. Somerset Maugham
Evil
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61
Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
W. Somerset Maugham
Tolerance
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62
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
W. Somerset Maugham
Tradition
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63
We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.
W. Somerset Maugham
Friends and Friendship
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64
We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
W. Somerset Maugham
Resignation
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65
What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
W. Somerset Maugham
Speech
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66
What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
W. Somerset Maugham
Age and Aging
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67
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
W. Somerset Maugham
Age and Aging
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68
You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
W. Somerset Maugham
Laughter
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69
You can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences.
W. Somerset Maugham
Consequences
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70
You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
W. Somerset Maugham
Adultery
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71
You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
W. Somerset Maugham
Critics and Criticism
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