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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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

896

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

896

The crown of literature is poetry.


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.


W. Somerset Maugham

896

It’s a funny thing about life if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.


W. Somerset Maugham

896

It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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.


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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

896

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

896

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


W. Somerset Maugham

896

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