It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then
they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.
– William Somerset Maugham
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.
– William Somerset Maugham
When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over
character.
– William Somerset Maugham
The world in general doesn’t know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its
comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
– William Somerset Maugham
Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in
love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.
– William Somerset Maugham
The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
– William Somerset Maugham
American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope
to find in their butlers.
– William Somerset Maugham
One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s
soul.
– William Somerset Maugham
Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course
they actually become the person they seem.
– William Somerset Maugham
People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
– William Somerset Maugham
An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than
the bad ones.
– William Somerset Maugham
Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with
food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
– William Somerset Maugham
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
– William Somerset Maugham
It was such a lovely day that it seemed a pity to get up.
– William Somerset Maugham
Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for
its own preservation..
– William Somerset Maugham
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is
that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
– William Somerset Maugham
As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but
men only at times.
– William Somerset Maugham
Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.
– William Somerset Maugham
Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be
better for the world if they talked more and did less.
– William Somerset Maugham
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
– William Somerset Maugham
I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay
others to do for me.
– William Somerset Maugham
Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It’s a relief then to deal with a
man who isn’t quite so delightful but a little more sincere.
– William Somerset Maugham
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature
of water to run down the hill.
– William Somerset Maugham
You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
– William Somerset Maugham
It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often
get it.
– William Somerset Maugham
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
– William Somerset Maugham
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the
miseries of life.
– William Somerset Maugham
It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but
suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
– William Somerset Maugham
If a man hasn’t what’s necessary to make a woman love him, it’s his fault, not hers.
– William Somerset Maugham
An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart’s blood into it, and then it
lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
– William Somerset Maugham
The best style is the style you don’t notice.
– William Somerset Maugham
Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present.
– William Somerset Maugham
If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the
use of speech.
– William Somerset Maugham
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening
effect of a habit
– William Somerset Maugham
Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
– William Somerset Maugham
I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I
think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults
as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something
of their virtues.
– William Somerset Maugham
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature
than in the young.
– William Somerset Maugham
The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does
now.
– William Somerset Maugham
If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
– William Somerset Maugham
It was not till quite late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say: “I don’t know.”
– William Somerset Maugham
There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against
Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it
a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns
the whole of created things.
– William Somerset Maugham
It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes
me laugh.
– William Somerset Maugham
You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.
– William Somerset Maugham
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a
passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
– William Somerset Maugham
The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
– William Somerset Maugham
Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do
with it.
– William Somerset Maugham
The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
– William Somerset Maugham
Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance.
– William Somerset Maugham
Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives… by make-
believe.
– William Somerset Maugham
It’s always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there’s no denying it, the sober
are at a disadvantage with him.
– William Somerset Maugham
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to
do without it.
– William Somerset Maugham
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
– William Somerset Maugham
Things don’t get any easier by putting them off.
– William Somerset Maugham
It’s no good trying to keep up old friendships. It’s painful for both sides. The fact is, one
grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
– William Somerset Maugham
To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day.
– William Somerset Maugham
Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
– William Somerset Maugham
He knew that women appreciated neither irony nor sarcasm, but simple jokes and funny
stories. He was amply provided with both.
– William Somerset Maugham
There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.
– William Somerset Maugham
It’s asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the
aesthetic.
– William Somerset Maugham
A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.
– William Somerset Maugham
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 into
them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded.
– William Somerset Maugham
As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue.
– William Somerset Maugham
There’s always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
– William Somerset Maugham
When a woman loves you she’s not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she’s
weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.
– William Somerset Maugham
In art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.
– William Somerset Maugham
Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love.
– William Somerset Maugham
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
– William Somerset Maugham
Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.
– William Somerset Maugham
Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
– William Somerset Maugham
A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.
– William Somerset Maugham
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-
complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant
and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
– William Somerset Maugham
You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
– William Somerset Maugham
A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
– William Somerset Maugham
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
– William Somerset Maugham
What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
– William Somerset Maugham
A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her… but she can never forgive him for the
sacrifices he makes on her account.
– William Somerset Maugham
It is cruel to discover one’s mediocrity only when it is too late.
– William Somerset Maugham
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if
we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
– William Somerset Maugham
It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on
spilling it.
– William Somerset Maugham
A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?
– William Somerset Maugham
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely
we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence
of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our
philosophy.
– William Somerset Maugham
I don’t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
– William Somerset Maugham
It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
– William Somerset Maugham
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.
– William Somerset Maugham
I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of
the world.
– William Somerset Maugham
My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not
fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
– William Somerset Maugham
Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
– William Somerset Maugham
What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but
the burden of one’s memories.
– William Somerset Maugham
I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.
– William Somerset Maugham
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It
is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
– William Somerset Maugham
Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
– William Somerset Maugham