Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

Image
I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit, I know you're a liar and a humbug, I know that you're utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is'--her face was on a sudden distraught with pain--'the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
The most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the center of the world.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature and the error is ineradicable.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
I'm only twenty-five. If I've made a mistake I have time to correct it.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain, just as the loveliest melodies are not too sublime to be expressed by notes.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
It has been said that good prose should resemble the conversation of a well-bred man.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
She says it's really not very flattering to her that the women who fall in love with her husband are so uncommonly second-rate.
W. Somerset Maugham
Image
The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for life. Its aim is not beauty but goodness.
W. Somerset Maugham