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Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments it is a whole-time job.

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
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W. Somerset Maugham
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Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with other men an escape from reality, but the means by which he accedes to it.
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Some American delusions: 1) That there is no class-consciousness in the country. 2) That American coffee is good. 3) That Americans are business-like. 4) That Americans are highly-sexed and that redheads are more highly sexed than others.
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One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
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Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.
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There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.
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But I am not sure it would contain any short stories. For the short story is a minor art, and it must content itself with moving, exciting and amusing the reader. ...I do not think that there is any (short story) that will give the reader that thrill, that rapture, that fruitful energy which great art can produce.
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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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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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There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
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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.
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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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In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
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It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
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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.
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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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A man ought to work. That's what he's here for. That's how he contributes to the welfare of the community.
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He exulted in the possession of himself once more he realized how much of the delight of the world he had lost when he was absorbed in that madness which they called love he had had enough of it he did not want to be in love anymore if love was that.
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Perfect is determined in shortened measures of time, not over long periods of time or lifetimes. It would be unnatural.
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Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.
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Music-hall songs provide the dull with wit, just as proverbs provide them with wisdom.
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