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If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
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
Necessary
Lying
Others
Sometimes
Always
Despicable
Oneself
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
If only the good were a little less heavy-footed
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Have common sense and stick to the point.
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If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
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We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
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How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.
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In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.
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He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.
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We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.
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Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.
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Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
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I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the center of the world.
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if you'd ever had a grown-up daughter you'd know that by comparison a bucking steer is easy to manage. And as to knowing what goes on inside her - well, it's much better to pretend you're the simple, innocent old fool she almost certainly takes you for.
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The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
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To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.
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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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Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.
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What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.
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It takes two to make a love affair and a mans meat is too often a woman's poison.
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It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production to the pains of childbirth.
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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
