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W. Somerset Maugham QUOTES

1 " How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Painted Veil

2 " As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Moon and Sixpence

3 " He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

4 " If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Painted Veil

5 " I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you'd only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn't care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should. I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn't afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Painted Veil

6 " Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

7 " When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Moon and Sixpence

8 " To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. "

― W. Somerset Maugham ,

9 " I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Painted Veil

10 " One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Painted Veil

W. Somerset Maugham QUOTES

11 " Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Razor's Edge

12 " It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

13 " He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague . . . He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightening on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

14 " Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

15 " He could breathe more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

16 " Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Theatre

17 " What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them? "

― W. Somerset Maugham

18 " Why did you look at the sunset?'
Philip answered with his mouth full:
Because I was happy. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

19 " It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage

20 " I've been quite happy. Look, here are my proofs. Remember that I am indifferent to discomforts which would harass other folk. What do the circumstances of life matter if your dreams make you lord paramount of time and space? "

― W. Somerset Maugham