Quote

We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.

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
Beautiful
Profound
Banality
Littles
Conversation
Manual
Ideas
Whose
Manuals
Little
Brain
Umbrella
Country
Language
Gardener
Things
Living
Condemned
Like
House
Aunt
Banalities
People
Tell
Manner
Seething

More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

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Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty the only thing that counts is the love of duty when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.
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There is no need for the writer to eat a whole sheep to be able to tell you what mutton tastes like. It is enough if he eats a cutlet. But he should do that.
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She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.
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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.
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What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
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The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so, and by the manipulation of his plot, he can engage the reader's attention so that he does not perceive the violence that has been done to him.
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A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
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A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.
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The drama is make-believe. It does not deal with truth but with effect.
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The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
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If only the good were a little less heavy-footed
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A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.
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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.
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I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.
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A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self indulgence.
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When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.
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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.
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Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion.
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Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
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Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington
W. Somerset Maugham