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Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
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
Purpose
Use
Art
Triumphant
Convention
Conventions
Instrument
Instruments
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
Failure make people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man.
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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.
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Evil is a necessary part of the order of the universe.
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I like manual labor. Whenever I've got waterlogged with study, I've taken a spell of it and found it spiritually invigorating.
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They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection but perhaps she does not always remember him.
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It has been said that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.
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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
Loving-kindness is the better part of goodness.
W. Somerset Maugham
I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.
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The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.
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Refecting on the high divorce rate in America as contrasted with England American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers
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It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.
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When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
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You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.' Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.
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She loved three things — a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.
W. Somerset Maugham
Beauty is an ecstasy it is as simple as hunger.
W. Somerset Maugham
The last words he said to me when I bade him good-night were: Tell Amy it's no good coming after me. Anyhow, I shall change my hotel, so she wouldn't be able to find me.' My own impression is that she's well rid of you,' I said. My dear fellow, I only hope you'll be able to make her see it. But women are very unintelligent.
W. Somerset Maugham
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. Somerset Maugham
A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.
W. Somerset Maugham
You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
W. Somerset Maugham
