W. Somerset Maugham Zitate auf Englisch

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I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.

W. Somerset Maugham

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.

W. Somerset Maugham

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

W. Somerset Maugham

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

W. Somerset Maugham

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

W. Somerset Maugham

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

W. 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.

W. 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.

W. Somerset Maugham

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.

W. Somerset Maugham

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

W. Somerset Maugham

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.

W. 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.

W. Somerset Maugham

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.

W. Somerset Maugham

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

W. Somerset Maugham

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

W. Somerset Maugham

What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.

W. Somerset Maugham

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.

W. Somerset Maugham

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

W. Somerset Maugham

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

W. Somerset Maugham

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

W. 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.

W. 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.

W. 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.

W. Somerset Maugham

The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.

W. Somerset Maugham

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

W. Somerset Maugham

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

W. Somerset Maugham

The crown of literature is poetry.

W. Somerset Maugham

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

W. Somerset Maugham

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

W. Somerset Maugham

Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.

W. 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.

W. Somerset Maugham

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.

W. Somerset Maugham

I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.

W. 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.

W. Somerset Maugham

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

W. Somerset Maugham

When you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right.

W. Somerset Maugham