W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

I have nothing to do with others, I am only concerned with myself. I take advantage of the fact that the majority of mankind are led by certain rewards to do things which directly or indirectly tend to my convenience.’‘It seems to me an awfully selfish way of looking at things,’ said Philip.‘But are you under the impression that men ever do anything except for selfish reasons?’‘Yes.’‘It is impossible that they should. You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognise the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably. Men seek but one thing in life—their pleasure.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good to come nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer to one of these questions is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for living and life has no meaning. We are here, inhabitants for a little while of a small planet, revolving around a minor star which is in turn one of unnumbered galaxies... The astronomer tells us.... this planet will eventually reach a condition when living things can no longer exist upon it and at long last the universe will attain that final state of equilibrium in which nothing more can happen. Aeons and aeons before this man will have disappeared. Is it possible to suppose that it will matter then that he ever existed? He will have been a chapter in the history of the universe as pointless as the chapter in which is written the life stories of the strange creatures that inhabited the primeval earth.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

It seemed to him that all his life he had followed the ideals that other people, by their words or their writings, had instilled into him, and never the desires of his own heart. Always his course had been swayed by what he thought he should do and never by what he wanted with his whole soul to do. […] He had lived always in the future, and the present always, always had slopped through his fingers. His ideals? He thought of his desire to make a design, intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy (conscience) within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

She’s wonderful. Tell her I’ve never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you.”Waddington, smiling, translated the question.“She says I’m good.”“As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue,” Kitty mocked.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

You say that Caesar Borgia suffered the just punishment of his crimes. He was destroyed not by his misdeeds, but by circumstances over which he had no control. His wickedness was an irrelevant accident. In this world of sin and sorrow if virtue triumphs over vice it is not because it is virtuous, but because it has better and bigger guns; if honesty prevails over double-dealing, it is not because it is honest, but because it has a stronger army more ably led; and if good overcomes evil it is not because it is good, but because it has a well-lined purse. It is well to have right on our side, but it madness to forget that unless we have might as well it will avail us nothing. We must believe that God loves men of good will, but there is no evidence to show that He will save fools from the result of their folly.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

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.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Himself an ugly man, insignificantof appearance, he prized very highly comeliness in others.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Only the poet or the saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will reward his labour.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?

~ W. Somerset Maugham

She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

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.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

We do not write as we want but as we can.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

The passing moment is all we can be sure of it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Impropriety is the soul of wit.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

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

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

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.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

The crown of literature is poetry.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

~ W. Somerset Maugham