Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
W. Somerset Maugham
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
W. Somerset Maugham
Age: 90 †
Born: 1874
Born: January 1
Died: 1965
Died: January 1
Army Scout
Literary Critic
Novelist
Physician Writer
Playwright
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Paris
France
W. Somerset Maugham
Somerset Maugham
Critics
Criticism
Praise
Asks
Religion
People
Bondage
Gossip
Envy
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'
W. Somerset Maugham
Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
W. Somerset Maugham
A good story is obviously a difficult thing to invent, but its difficulty is a poor reason for despising it.
W. Somerset Maugham
There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. Somerset Maugham
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
W. Somerset Maugham
You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the wisecrack.
W. Somerset Maugham
Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.
W. Somerset Maugham
We do not write because we want to we write because we have to.
W. Somerset Maugham
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
W. Somerset Maugham
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
It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
W. Somerset Maugham
[Money] is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
W. Somerset Maugham
Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.
W. Somerset Maugham
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
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
I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
W. Somerset Maugham
The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so.
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
I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit, I know you're a liar and a humbug, I know that you're utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is'--her face was on a sudden distraught with pain--'the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.
W. Somerset Maugham
It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me.
W. Somerset Maugham
