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It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule.

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
Men
Dies
Likes
Cabbage
Rather
Rule
Calculation
Future
Expect
Puzzled
Pain
Accept
Illusory
Often
Accepting
Calculations
Ideas
Pleasure
Immediate
Country
Greater
Error
Children
Clear
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Refutation

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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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I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
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The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so.
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First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.
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People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.
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I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
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No action is in itself good or bad, but only such according to convention.
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You cannot write well or much (and I venture the opinion that you cannot write well unless you write much) unless you form a habit.
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