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When we come to judge others it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.

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
Left
Formed
Others
Vanity
Everything
Judge
Come
Image
Really
Criticism
Would
Judging
World
Eyes
Offends
Eye
Discredit

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The artist produces for the liberation of his soul.
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Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
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The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
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Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
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What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
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The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
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No woman is worth more than a fiver unless you're in love with her. Then she's worth all she costs you.
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The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Boulevard St. Germain.
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If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
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If only the good were a little less heavy-footed
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There's no one as transparent as the person who thinks he's devilish deep.
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It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.
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Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material ... Don't wait for experience to come to you go out after experience. Experience is your material.
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I knew that suffering did not enoble it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things...it made them less than men and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
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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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Sherry, the civilized drink.
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