Top 500 W. Somerset Maugham Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Writing is the supreme solace.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

102. “There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?”

— W. Somerset Maugham

103. “Culture is not just an ornament; it is the expression of a nation’s character, and at the same time it is a powerful instrument to mould character. The end of culture is right living.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

104. “Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

105. “Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

106. “Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

107. “Have common sense and stick to the point.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

108. “Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

109. “It’s very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

110. “The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

111. “Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humour and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

112. “The well dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

113. “The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

114. “When a woman loves you she’s not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she’s weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

115. “When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

116. “The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

117. “In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

118. “Failure make people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

119. “Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

120. “The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

121. “As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

122. “Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

123. “The drama is make-believe. It does not deal with truth but with effect.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

124. “Impropriety is the soul of wit.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

125. “Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

126. “A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

127. “We can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing, too.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

128. “Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

129. “It’s asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. – Of Human Bondage.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

130. “The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil. It is the sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

131. “Make him laugh and he will think you a trivial fellow, but bore him in the right way and your reputation is assured.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

132. “I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death’s own hand is warmer than my own. I don’t wish to live any longer.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

133. “Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination; it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with other men an escape from reality, but the means by which he accedes to it.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

134. “You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

135. “There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

136. “Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

137. “It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

138. “You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

139. “She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

140. “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

141. “It takes two to make a love affair and a mans meat is too often a woman’s poison.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

142. “The best style is the style you don’t notice.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

143. “A man ought to work. That’s what he’s here for. That’s how he contributes to the welfare of the community.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

144. “The world in general doesn’t know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

145. “I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

146. “The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so, and by the manipulation of his plot, he can engage the reader’s attention so that he does not perceive the violence that has been done to him.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

147. “First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

148. “I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

149. “Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

150. “Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.”

— W. Somerset Maugham