Life Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

The end of culture is right living

— W. Somerset Maugham

As the cosmos are in place, so be it with your life.

— W. Somerset Maugham

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

— W. Somerset Maugham

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.

— W. Somerset Maugham

A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Life isn't long enough for love and art.

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Life is there to be lived rather than to be written about.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.

— W. Somerset Maugham

The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your father's steps, and look neither to the right nor to the…

— W. Somerset Maugham

For the complete life, the perfect pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity.

— 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…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives not by truth but by make-believe.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“He was thankful not to have to believe in God, for then such a condition of things would be intolerable; one could…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Though he had both esteem and admiration for the sensibility of the human race, he had little respect for their intelligence: man…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole…

— W. Somerset Maugham

The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Throw yourself into the hurly-burly of life. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, what unhappiness you have to undergo. It…

— W. Somerset Maugham

The life force is vigorous. The delight that accompanies it counter-balances all the pains and hardships that confront men. It makes life…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“He seemed to see his fellow creatures grotesquely, and he was angry with them because they were grotesque; life was a confusion…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not…

— W. Somerset Maugham

When some incident has shattered the career you’ve mapped out for yourself, a folly, a crime or a misfortune, you mustn’t think…

— W. Somerset Maugham

The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very…

— W. Somerset Maugham

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“I am willing to take life as a game of chess in which the first rules are not open to discussion. No…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“He did not know what he sought or what his journeys would bring him; but he had a feeling that he would…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Patsy had asked him if he had had adventures in Paris and he had truthfully answered no. It was a fact that…

— W. Somerset Maugham

But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“It is an illusion that youth is happy: an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“You don't know the difference between truth and make-believe. You never stop acting. It's second nature to you. You act when there's…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“It came upon me little by little. I came to like the life here, with its ease and its leisure, and the…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“All his plans were suddenly overthrown, and the existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than a dream which would never be…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“I adore good food as I adore all the other pleasant things of life, and because I have that gift I am…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The Work of Art. When I watch the audience at a concert or the crowd in the picture gallery I ask myself…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“To Lucy it was an admirable study, the contrast between the man who threw his whole soul into a certain aim, which…

— W. Somerset Maugham