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I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.
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
Wrong
Happens
Self
Ideal
Men
Ideals
Think
Perfection
Thinking
Objects
Greatest
Happen
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
W. Somerset Maugham
The tragedy of love is indifference.
W. Somerset Maugham
First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.
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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.
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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
Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
W. Somerset Maugham
You can never know enough about your characters
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A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?
W. Somerset Maugham
The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain, just as the loveliest melodies are not too sublime to be expressed by notes.
W. Somerset Maugham
If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
W. Somerset Maugham
No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.
W. Somerset Maugham
The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.
W. Somerset Maugham
The drama is make-believe. It does not deal with truth but with effect.
W. Somerset Maugham
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. Somerset Maugham
And I have the sunset, and the Tuscan wine, and the white teeth of the women in Rome. I am a traveler in Romance.
W. Somerset Maugham
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
W. Somerset Maugham
The spirit is often most free when the body is satiated with pleasure indeed, sometimes the stars shine more brightly seen from the gutter than from the hilltop.
W. Somerset Maugham
Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty the only thing that counts is the love of duty when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character happiness does that sometimes, but suffering for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
W. Somerset Maugham