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But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.
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
Build
Anyone
Everyone
Purely
Destructive
Destroy
Criticism
More quotes by W. Somerset Maugham
The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.
W. Somerset Maugham
The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of thought and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.
W. Somerset Maugham
There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood.
W. Somerset Maugham
Clearly much that seemed valid seemed so only because he had been taught it from earliest youth.
W. Somerset Maugham
Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man.
W. Somerset Maugham
I knew that suffering did not enoble it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things...it made them less than men and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
W. Somerset Maugham
Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.
W. Somerset Maugham
The officers saluted as she passed and gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette. A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
W. Somerset Maugham
and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.
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
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.
W. Somerset Maugham
Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.
W. Somerset Maugham
There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
W. Somerset Maugham
Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it.
W. Somerset Maugham
We do not write as we want, but as we can.
W. Somerset Maugham
No woman is worth more than a fiver unless you're in love with her. Then she's worth all she costs you.
W. Somerset Maugham
if you'd ever had a grown-up daughter you'd know that by comparison a bucking steer is easy to manage. And as to knowing what goes on inside her - well, it's much better to pretend you're the simple, innocent old fool she almost certainly takes you for.
W. Somerset Maugham
It was like making a blunder at a party there was nothing to do about it, it was dreadfully mortifying, but it showed a lack of sense to ascribe too much importance to it.
W. Somerset Maugham
They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection but perhaps she does not always remember him.
W. Somerset Maugham
