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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
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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
Read
Entertaining
Nothing
Sooner
Much
Novels
Would
Table
Time
Tables
Novel
Written
Catalogue
Half
Catalogues
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.
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The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible.
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Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
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If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one.
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She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.
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Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
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The mathematician who after seeing Phedre asked: 'Qu'est que ca prouve?' was not such a fool as he has been generally made out. No one has ever been able to explain why the Doric temple of Paestum is more beautiful than a glass of cold beer except by bringing in considerations that have nothing to do with beauty.
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What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
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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.
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When we come to judge others it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.
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Do you absolutely despise me, Walter? No. He hesitated and his voice was strange. I despise myself.
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Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
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Genius is talent provided with ideals.
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Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
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Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
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It needs a good deal of philosophy not to be mortified by the thought of persons who have voluntarily abandoned everything that for the most of us makes life worth living and are devoid of envy of what they have missed. I have never made up my mind whether they are fools or wise men.
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Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness. It lends grace to the sterner qualities of which this consists.
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The essential element of love is a belief in its own eternity.
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It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.
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When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
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