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Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It is all your material ... Don't wait for experience to come to you go out after experience. Experience is your material.

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
Many
Wait
Make
Materials
Life
Mistake
Burly
Waiting
Undergo
Experience
Unhappiness
Doesn
Throw
Come
Mistakes
Matter
Material

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I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved the sense.
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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.
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She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses.
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Only mediocre people are at the best all the time.
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He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.
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You see, money to you means freedom to me it means bondage.
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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.
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It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me.
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The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life worth living.
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The spirit is often most free when the body is satiated with pleasure indeed, sometimes the stars shine more brightly seen from the gutter than from the hilltop.
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Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
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The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?
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You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.' Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.
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Do you like card tricks? No, I hate card tricks, I answered. Well, I`ll just show you this one. He showed me three.
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I wonder how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own thoughts.
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Women are strange little beasts,' he said to Dr. Coutras. 'You can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, it is one of the most absurd illusions of Christianity that they have souls.
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Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
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Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
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For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.
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