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
Always
Despicable
Oneself
Necessary
Lying
Others
Sometimes
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
W. Somerset Maugham
Tolerance is another word for indifference.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
W. Somerset Maugham
First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.
W. Somerset Maugham
Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.
W. Somerset Maugham
In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.
W. Somerset Maugham
Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
W. Somerset Maugham
Comedy appeals to the collective mind of the audience and this grows fatigued while farce appeals to a more robust organ, their collective belly.
W. Somerset Maugham
It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage
W. Somerset Maugham
I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.
W. Somerset Maugham
Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
W. Somerset Maugham
Dying is the most hellishly boresome experience in the world! Particularly when it entails dying of 'natural causes'.
W. Somerset Maugham
I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the center of the world.
W. Somerset Maugham
There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort.
W. Somerset Maugham
Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.
W. Somerset Maugham
Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy (conscience) within his gates and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd.
W. Somerset Maugham
Illusions are like umbrellas - you no sooner get them than you lose them, and the loss always leaves a little painful wound.
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
The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
W. Somerset Maugham
