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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.
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
Critics
Philosophy
Learn
Human
Transitoriness
Humans
Impartiality
Must
Serenity
Great
Critic
Things
Philosopher
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?
W. Somerset Maugham
It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'
W. Somerset Maugham
You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me now.
W. Somerset Maugham
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
Some American delusions: 1) That there is no class-consciousness in the country. 2) That American coffee is good. 3) That Americans are business-like. 4) That Americans are highly-sexed and that redheads are more highly sexed than others.
W. Somerset Maugham
No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.
W. Somerset Maugham
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
W. Somerset Maugham
Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.
W. Somerset Maugham
You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
W. Somerset Maugham
The end of culture is right living
W. Somerset Maugham
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. It's a funny thing about life if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
W. Somerset Maugham
Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia.
W. Somerset Maugham
I never met an author who admitted that people did not buy his book because it was dull.
W. Somerset Maugham
He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.
W. Somerset Maugham
With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love without making a fool of himself.
W. Somerset Maugham
He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else.
W. Somerset Maugham
Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
W. Somerset Maugham
For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.
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
In the conduct of life we make use of deliberation to justify ourselves in doing what we want to do.
W. Somerset Maugham
