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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
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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
Men
Ideals
Picture
Average
Fabricate
Personality
Characteristics
Normal
Hardly
Single
Rarely
Character
Ideal
Find
Expected
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well
W. Somerset Maugham
A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence.
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
I do not think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.
W. Somerset Maugham
Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.
W. Somerset Maugham
The great man is too often all of a piece it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.
W. Somerset Maugham
Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
W. Somerset Maugham
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
Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.
W. Somerset Maugham
It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
W. Somerset Maugham
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
W. Somerset Maugham
The day broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.
W. Somerset Maugham
Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result of innumerable rebuffs.
W. Somerset Maugham
The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so, and by the manipulation of his plot, he can engage the reader's attention so that he does not perceive the violence that has been done to him.
W. Somerset Maugham
Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.
W. Somerset Maugham
An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.
W. Somerset Maugham
We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
W. Somerset Maugham
