Top 500 W. Somerset Maugham Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

253. “It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

254. “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

255. “They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

256. “Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

257. “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

258. “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

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

260. “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

261. “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

262. “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

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

265. “The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

266. “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

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

268. “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

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

271. “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

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

277. “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

278. “We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

279. “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

280. “Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

282. “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

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

284. “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

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

286. “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

287. “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

288. “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

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. “So long as some are strong and some are weak, the weak will be driven to the wall.”

— 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. “I promised myself that if ever I had some money that I would savor a cigar each day after lunch and dinner. This is the only resolution of my youth that I have kept, and the only realized ambition which has not brought disillusion.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

293. “Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

296. “I cannot believe in a God who has neither humor nor common sense.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

297. “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

298. “I don’t think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I’m sure it’s very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham