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Quotations for Every Mood





Quotations of selected author

William Somerset Maugham

1874 - 1965. English novelist and playwriter, author of "Of Human Bondage", "The Moon and Sixpence", "The Razor`s Edge".

1. "You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism."

source: "Cakes and Ale"

categories: Art and Culture -:- Truth and Falsity

2. "Tradition is a guide not a jailer."

categories: Various

3. "Tolerance is only another name for indifference."

source: "A Writer's Notebook"

categories: Egoism -:- Friendship and Hostility -:- Good and Evil

4. "There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved."

source: "Of Human Bondage"

categories: Love

5. "There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless."

source: "The Summing Up"

categories: Good and Evil

6. "There are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action."

categories: Freedom and Servitude

7. "There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

categories: Art and Culture

8. "The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them."

source: "Cakes and Ale"

categories: Beauty and Ugliness

9. "The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes."

categories: Art and Culture

10. "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 cruel and bitter."

source: "The Summing Up"

categories: Defeates and Mistakes -:- Human -:- Success and Fame

11. "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."

categories: Wit and Humor

12. "Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem."

source: "The Moon and Sixpence"

categories: Manners and Ethics -:- Various

13. "She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit."

categories: Wit and Humor

14. "People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise."

source: "Of Human Bondage"

categories: Manners and Ethics

15. "Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets."

categories: Richness and Money -:- Destiny and Fate

16. "Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five."

source: "Of Human Bondage "

categories: Richness and Money

17. "It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it. "

source: "Of Human Bondage"

categories: Defeates and Mistakes -:- Sorrow and Nostalgia

18. "It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."

source: "Moon and Sixpence"

categories: Happiness -:- Pain and Tears

19. "If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech."

categories: Oration and Silence

20. "I don`t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present."

categories: Various

21. "From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture."

source: "Cakes and Ale"

categories: Wisdom and Stupidity -:- Youth and Age

22. "Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul."

source: "The Summing Up"

categories: Art and Culture

23. "Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it."

categories: Life and Death

24. "Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers."

source: "A Writer's Notebook"

categories: Intellect, Judgement -:- Manners and Ethics

25. "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."

source: "Cakes and Ale"

categories: Beauty and Ugliness

26. "At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely."

source: "A Writer's Notebook"

categories: Manners and Ethics

27. "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."

source: "The Moon and Sixpence"

categories: Forgiveness -:- Woman and Man


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