William Somerset Maugham, (January 25, 1874 – December 16, 1965)
A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.
American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort that it values more, it will lose that too.
If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be so grossly over-populated as it is now.
It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.
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.
It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.
It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
It's a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.
Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
Money is like a sixth sense-and you can't make use of the other five without it.
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.
No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman.
Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
The contrast between a man's professions and his actions is one of the most diverting spectacles that life offers.
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune and willingly avoids the sight of distress.
There are three rules for writing a novel; unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
Tolerance is only another name for indifference.
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
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.
We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
Categories: Quotes of the day
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