W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 2

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.

A man's work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, but in his book or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless. No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind. No one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.

You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.

He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment.

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.

It looked as though you did not act in a certain way because you thought in a certain way, but rather you thought in a certain way because you were made in a certain way. Truth had nothing to do with it.

Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.

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

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.

Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can.

What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

Why did you look at the sunset?'
Philip answered with his mouth full:
Because I was happy.

It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.

I've been quite happy. Look, here are my proofs. Remember that I am indifferent to discomforts which would harass other folk. What do the circumstances of life matter if your dreams make you lord paramount of time and space?

I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.

The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.

A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.