Top 500 W. Somerset Maugham Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

252. “There is no need for the writer to eat a whole sheep to be able to tell you what mutton tastes like. It is enough if he eats a cutlet. But he should do that.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

253. “The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

254. “There’s no one as transparent as the person who thinks he’s devilish deep.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

255. “I am afraid of people with too much charm. They devour you. In the end you are made a sacrifice to the exercise of their fascinating gift and their insincerity.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

256. “The essential element of love is a belief in its own eternity.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

257. “It has amazed me that the most incongruous traits should exist in the same person and, for all that, yield a plausible harmony.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

258. “There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

259. “There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

260. “There are many foolish people in the world and when a man in a rather high position puts on no frills, slaps them on the back, and tells them he’ll do anything in the world for them, they are very likely to think him clever.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

261. “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

262. “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

263. “What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

264. “The audience is not the least important actor in the play and if it will not do its allotted share the play falls to pieces.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

265. “It’s always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there’s no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

266. “I prefer a loose woman to a selfish one and a wanton to a fool.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

267. “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

268. “I wonder how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own thoughts.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

269. “Almost all the people who’ve had the most effect on me I seem to have met by chance, yet looking back it seems as though I couldn’t but have met them.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

270. “A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

271. “In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

272. “The normal is what you find but rarely. The normal is an ideal. It is a picture that one fabricates of the average characteristics of men, and to find them all in a single man is hardly to be expected.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

273. “What mean and cruel things men do for the love of God.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

274. “Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

275. “There is no more merit in being able to attach a correct description to a picture than in being able to find out what is wrong with a stalled motorcar. In each case it is special knowledge.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

276. “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

277. “Her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a new love because he had made her suffer.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

278. “She was a fool and he knew it and because he loved her it had made no difference.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

279. “We find things beautiful because we recognize them and contrariwise we find things beautiful because their novelty surprises us.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

280. “Beauty is also a Gift of God, one of the most rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our pleasure.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

281. “When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

282. “In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

283. “For the complete life, the perfect pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

284. “Men seek but one thing in life – their pleasure.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

285. “Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?? The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly. Oh, my dear, it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.? Didn’t you mean them?? At the moment.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

286. “In the conduct of life we make use of deliberation to justify ourselves in doing what we want to do.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

287. “The officers saluted as she passed and gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette. A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

288. “It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

289. “Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It’s a relief then to deal with a man who isn’t quite so delightful but a little more sincere.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

290. “When married people don’t get on they can separate, but if they’re not married it’s impossible. It’s a tie that only death can sever.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

291. “The spirit is often most free when the body is satiated with pleasure; indeed, sometimes the stars shine more brightly seen from the gutter than from the hilltop.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

292. “A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

293. “The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?”

— W. Somerset Maugham

294. “The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

295. “I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

296. “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

297. “Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it’s a mistake to make a habit out of it.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

298. “I could have forgiven it if he’d fallen desperately in love with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought that natural. I shouldn’t really have blamed him. I should have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and women are so unscrupulous.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

299. “Affection is created by habit, community of interests, convenience and the desire of companionship. It is a comfort rather than an exhilaration.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

300. “Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.”

— W. Somerset Maugham