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Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
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
Preservation
Individuality
Ethics
Morality
Rules
Conscience
Community
Guardian
Individual
Evolved
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it.
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There is no more merit in being able to attach a correct description to a picture than in being able to find out what is wrong with a stalled motorcar. In each case it is special knowledge.
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There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain
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Illusions are like umbrellas - you no sooner get them than you lose them, and the loss always leaves a little painful wound.
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I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
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The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
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Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man.
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To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
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Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.
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The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.
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It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
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if you'd ever had a grown-up daughter you'd know that by comparison a bucking steer is easy to manage. And as to knowing what goes on inside her - well, it's much better to pretend you're the simple, innocent old fool she almost certainly takes you for.
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You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me now.
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The humorist has a good eye for the humbug he does not always recognize the saint.
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A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.
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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.
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Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.
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Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia.
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Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.
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