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It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled in them, and each time they come into contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.

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
Come
Ideals
Real
Illusion
Time
Youth
Instilled
Full
Bruised
Happy
Bondage
Lost
Wretched
Truth
Wounded
Young
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Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man.
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Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?' The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly. Oh, my dear, it's rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he's in love with you.' Didn't you mean them?' At the moment.
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Affection is created by habit, community of interests, convenience and the desire of companionship. It is a comfort rather than an exhilaration.
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It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.
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If truth is a value it is because it is true and not because it is brave to speak it.
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[Money] is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
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Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
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If only the good were a little less heavy-footed
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Art, if it is to be reckoned as one of the great values of life, must teach man humility, tolerance, wisdom and magnanimity. The value of art is not beauty, but right action.
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Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with other men an escape from reality, but the means by which he accedes to it.
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Advice to first year medical students: In anatomy, it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.
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There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.
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