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I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
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
Somebody
Mistake
Makes
Profits
Else
Bats
Right
Bondage
Thing
Profit
Mistakes
Advice
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people.
W. Somerset Maugham
I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
W. Somerset Maugham
Through the history of the world there have always been exploiters and exploited. There always will be ... because the great mass of men are made by nature to be slaves, they are unfit to control themselves, and for their own good need masters.
W. Somerset Maugham
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
W. Somerset Maugham
There are many foolish people in the world and when a man in a rather high position puts on no frills, slaps them on the back, and tells them he'll do anything in the world for them, they are very likely to think him clever.
W. Somerset Maugham
I can only guess that it made the world he went back to...strangely without meaning. Though he lived in it, though he even enjoyed it, it remained utterly remote. I think it had lost sense for him. In his heart was the reflection of a lovely dream that he could never quite recall.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it.
W. Somerset Maugham
From the earliest time the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
W. Somerset Maugham
There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. Somerset Maugham
The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
W. Somerset Maugham
The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
W. Somerset Maugham
The good traveler has the gift of surprise.
W. Somerset Maugham
The crown of literature is poetry.
W. Somerset Maugham
Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
W. Somerset Maugham
Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is astonishing how many books I find there is no need for me to read at all.
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
Evil can be condoned only if in the beyond it is compensated by good and god himself needs immortality to vindicate his ways to man.
W. Somerset Maugham
