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An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but a plaything.
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
Enjoy
Art
May
Great
Plaything
Clique
Significant
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
A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?
W. Somerset Maugham
When she liked anyone it was quite natural for her to go to bed with him. She never thought twice about it. It was not vice it wasn't lasciviousness it was her nature. She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others.
W. Somerset Maugham
Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical.
W. Somerset Maugham
There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.
W. Somerset Maugham
The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
W. Somerset Maugham
A novelist must preserve a childlike belief in the importance of things which common sense considers of no great consequence.
W. Somerset Maugham
The drama is make-believe. It does not deal with truth but with effect.
W. Somerset Maugham
Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
W. Somerset Maugham
Why did you look at the sunset?' Philip answered with his mouth full: Because I was happy.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is astonishing how many books I find there is no need for me to read at all.
W. Somerset Maugham
It has been said that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.
W. Somerset Maugham
I promised myself that if ever I had some money that I would savor a cigar each day after lunch and dinner. This is the only resolution of my youth that I have kept, and the only realized ambition which has not brought disillusion.
W. Somerset Maugham
Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well
W. Somerset Maugham
It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest.
W. Somerset Maugham
Perfect is determined in shortened measures of time, not over long periods of time or lifetimes. It would be unnatural.
W. Somerset Maugham
Culture is not just an ornament it is the expression of a nation's character, and at the same time it is a powerful instrument to mould character. The end of culture is right living.
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
Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it.
W. Somerset Maugham
There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.
W. Somerset Maugham
