Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
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
Sometimes
Always
Despicable
Oneself
Necessary
Lying
Others
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with other men an escape from reality, but the means by which he accedes to it.
W. Somerset Maugham
Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It's a relief then to deal with a man who isn't quite so delightful but a little more sincere.
W. Somerset Maugham
Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.
W. Somerset Maugham
The humour of Dostoievsky is the humour of a barloafer who ties a kettle to a dog's tail.
W. Somerset Maugham
In the conduct of life we make use of deliberation to justify ourselves in doing what we want to do.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. It's a funny thing about life if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
W. Somerset Maugham
Clearly much that seemed valid seemed so only because he had been taught it from earliest youth.
W. Somerset Maugham
There's nothing the world loves more than a ready-made description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves all trouble in future.
W. Somerset Maugham
A man filled with meat turns his back on the dry bones of political doctrine. Fanatical devotion to the ruling party comes more readily from the materially deprived At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
W. Somerset Maugham
Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant.
W. Somerset Maugham
Now it is a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. If you utterly decline to make do with what you can get, then somehow or other, you are very likely to get what you want.
W. Somerset Maugham
I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
W. Somerset Maugham
When a man's in love, he at once makes a pedestal of the Ten Commandments and stands on the top of them with his arms akimbo. When a woman's in love she doesn't care two straws for Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
No woman is worth more than a fiver unless you're in love with her. Then she's worth all she costs you.
W. Somerset Maugham
The crown of literature is poetry.
W. Somerset Maugham
I never met an author who admitted that people did not buy his book because it was dull.
W. Somerset Maugham
Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
W. Somerset Maugham
It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
W. Somerset Maugham
