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The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
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
Ideal
Ideals
Beauty
Names
Many
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
In heaven, when the blessed use the telephone they will say what they have to say and not a word besides.
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The officers saluted as she passed and gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette. A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
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People who ask for your criticism want only praise.
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I do not think you want too much sincerity in society. It would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.
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I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved the sense.
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You must not pursue a success, but fly from it.
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Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.
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So long as some are strong and some are weak, the weak will be driven to the wall.
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You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous.
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There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.
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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.
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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.
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The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own.
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I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.
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How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.
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Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
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Love is not always blind and there are few things that cause greater wretchedness than to love with all your heart someone who you know is unworthy of love.
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There are few things so pleasant as a picnic eaten in perfect comfort.
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Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.
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The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil. It is the sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.
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