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To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.
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
Failure
Courage
Inspiration
Anyone
Character
Mortification
Give
Proof
Best
Bear
Giving
Bears
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible.
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Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
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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.
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Perhaps it would have been possible to see in him a new Prometheus...the hero who for the good of mankind exposes himself to the agonies of the damned...undaunted by failure, by an unceasing effort of courage holding despair at bay, doggedly persistent in the face of self-doubt, which is the artist's bitterest enemy.
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I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
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I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.
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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.
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What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
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I do not think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.
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An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.
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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
There are many foolish people in the world and when a man in a rather high position puts on no frills, slaps them on the back, and tells them he'll do anything in the world for them, they are very likely to think him clever.
W. Somerset Maugham
There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed.
W. Somerset Maugham
You will have to learn many tedious things,...which you will forget the moment you have passed your final examination, but in anatomy it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.
W. Somerset Maugham
Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.
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Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.
W. Somerset Maugham
It's a funny thing about life if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
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The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them.
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People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
W. Somerset Maugham
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
W. Somerset Maugham