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We do not write as we want, but as we can.
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
Inspirational
Beautiful
Writing
Life
Write
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
Has it occurred to you that transmigration is at once an explanation and a justification of the evil of the world? If the evils we suffer are the result of sins committed in our past lives, we can bear them with resignation and hope that if in this one we strive toward virtue out future lives will be less afflicted.
W. Somerset Maugham
In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four.
W. Somerset Maugham
The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own.
W. Somerset Maugham
Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
W. Somerset Maugham
There are times when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity. I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?
W. Somerset Maugham
If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one.
W. Somerset Maugham
If truth is a value it is because it is true and not because it is brave to speak it.
W. Somerset Maugham
The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
W. Somerset Maugham
Tolerance is another word for indifference.
W. Somerset Maugham
There is no need for the writer to eat a whole sheep to be able to tell you what mutton tastes like. It is enough if he eats a cutlet. But he should do that.
W. Somerset Maugham
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
W. Somerset Maugham
Beauty is an ecstasy it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
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
Life is really very fantastic, and one has to have a peculiar sense of humour to see the fun of it. [Virtue]
W. Somerset Maugham
Her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a new love because he had made her suffer.
W. Somerset Maugham
A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.
W. Somerset Maugham
Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
W. Somerset Maugham
Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.
W. Somerset Maugham
It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general ability.
W. Somerset Maugham
He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.
W. Somerset Maugham
