W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - Page 2

British - Playwright January 25, 1874 - December 16, 1965

Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

W. Somerset Maugham

Age Old Age Youth Long

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?

W. Somerset Maugham

Life Good Change You

We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.

W. Somerset Maugham

Friends Know Than Our

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Friendship Personality Character You

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Writing Three Rules Knows

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

W. Somerset Maugham

Best Person Always Only

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know.'

W. Somerset Maugham

Life Know Easy Late

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Life Mind Humor I Can

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

W. Somerset Maugham

World Bored Sight Willing

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.

W. Somerset Maugham

Memories Age Old Age Burden

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Happiness Character Men Suffering

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

W. Somerset Maugham

You World Consequences Anything

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.

W. Somerset Maugham

Love Love Is Achieve Only Us

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

Life My Life Book Literature

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Day Thought Get Lovely

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Money You Without Like

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.

W. Somerset Maugham

Good Truth You Know

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

W. Somerset Maugham

Food You Eat Three

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.

W. Somerset Maugham

Truth Only Us Tell

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Stress Men Mind Weak

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

W. Somerset Maugham

Young Trouble Sixties Writers

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

Life World Surprise My Own

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

W. Somerset Maugham

Always Most Useful Principle

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.

W. Somerset Maugham

Women Long Apple Hollywood

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

Anger Thought World Know

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

Work Independence Enough Dignity

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