He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her. W. Somerset Maugham More Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham More Quotes From W. Somerset Maugham Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation. W. Somerset Maugham ethicsindividualitycommunity I'm not only my spirit buy my body, and who can decide how much I, my individual self, am conditioned by the accident of my body? Would Byron have been Byron but for his club foot, or Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky without his epilepsy? W. Somerset Maugham epilepsyselffeet The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Boulevard St. Germain. W. Somerset Maugham fashionaverageheaven A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words? W. Somerset Maugham understoodinfinitegod We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights. W. Somerset Maugham godjobsbelieve Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute; and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi. W. Somerset Maugham moneyimportantthinking It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour. W. Somerset Maugham gracedoelooks Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable. W. Somerset Maugham errorsnaturemen Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning. W. Somerset Maugham atheismanswersmen I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists. W. Somerset Maugham appreciationlongart The arguments for immortality, weak when you take them one by one, are no more cogent when you take them together... For my part, I cannot see how consciousness can persist when its physical basis has been destroyed, and I am too sure of the interconnection of my body and my mind to think that any survival of my my consciousness apart from my body would be in any sense a survival of myself. W. Somerset Maugham survivalmindthinking The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own. W. Somerset Maugham criminalsatheismartist The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress. W. Somerset Maugham boredsightworld 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. W. Somerset Maugham atheismmenneeds I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer. W. Somerset Maugham sadnesssickhands I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved the sense. W. Somerset Maugham atheism It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection. W. Somerset Maugham creativitycreativeperfection D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children. W. Somerset Maugham strugglejobschildren People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are. W. Somerset Maugham writingcharacterbook There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood. W. Somerset Maugham human-bondageanxietymean
