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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
Thinking
Objects
Greatest
Happen
Wrong
Happens
Self
Ideal
Men
Ideals
Think
Perfection
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
I promised myself that if ever I had some money that I would savor a cigar each day after lunch and dinner. This is the only resolution of my youth that I have kept, and the only realized ambition which has not brought disillusion.
W. Somerset Maugham
A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.
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It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage
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You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous.
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A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
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
The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
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Music-hall songs provide the dull with wit, just as proverbs provide them with wisdom.
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Illusions are like umbrellas - you no sooner get them than you lose them, and the loss always leaves a little painful wound.
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If only the good were a little less heavy-footed
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It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service.
W. Somerset Maugham
I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.
W. Somerset Maugham
It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
W. Somerset Maugham
Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.
W. Somerset Maugham
We do not write as we want, but as we can.
W. Somerset Maugham
She’s wonderful. Tell her I’ve never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you.” Waddington, smiling, translated the question. “She says I’m good.” “As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue,” Kitty mocked.
W. Somerset Maugham
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
W. Somerset Maugham
I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.
W. Somerset Maugham
Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature and the error is ineradicable.
W. Somerset Maugham
