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Men Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

94 Men quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

All Men quotes W. Somerset Maugham’s page

A man in love builds a pedestal of commandments and stands tall, while a woman’s love is described as less bound by rules. Maugham’s lines also note how men crave approval from peers and how some cling to stubborn ideas. The quotes blend humor about gender with observations on ambition.

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What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.

W. Somerset Maugham

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As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue.

W. Somerset Maugham

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She loved three things — a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.

W. Somerset Maugham

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A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Failure make people bitter and cruel. Success improves the character of the man.

W. Somerset Maugham

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The well dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice

W. Somerset Maugham

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Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man.

W. Somerset Maugham

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them;…

W. Somerset Maugham

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A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort…

W. Somerset Maugham

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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In civilized communities men's idiosyncrasies are mitigated by the necessity of conforming to certain rules of behavior. Culture is a mask that…

W. Somerset Maugham

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She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it…

W. Somerset Maugham

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Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?' The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.…

W. Somerset Maugham

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Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of…

W. Somerset Maugham

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The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements.…

W. Somerset Maugham

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I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was…

W. Somerset Maugham

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Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination; it is the privilege of the artist that with him it is not as with…

W. Somerset Maugham

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A man filled with meat turns his back on the dry bones of political doctrine. Fanatical devotion to the ruling party comes…

W. Somerset Maugham

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Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will…

W. Somerset Maugham

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I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to the universities go on a…

W. Somerset Maugham

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You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing…

W. Somerset Maugham

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You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in…

W. Somerset Maugham

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It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for…

W. Somerset Maugham

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I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government…

W. Somerset Maugham

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I was a stray acquaintance whom he had never seem before and would never see again, a wandered for a moment through…

W. Somerset Maugham

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I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan't make the mistakes I've made. When I…

W. Somerset Maugham

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Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a…

W. Somerset Maugham

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“Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit,…

W. Somerset Maugham

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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It has been said that good prose should resemble the conversation of a well-bred man.

W. Somerset Maugham

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?

W. Somerset Maugham

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.

W. Somerset Maugham

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More by W. Somerset Maugham

“A man thinks it quite natural that he should fall out of love with a woman, but it never strikes him for a moment…

W. Somerset Maugham

“A man's work reveals him. In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, but in his book…

W. Somerset Maugham

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

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 humble. We…

W. Somerset Maugham

“There is no more merit in having read a thousand books than in having ploughed a thousand fields.”

W. Somerset Maugham

“I wanted to live again and again. I was willing to accept every sort of life, no matter what its pain and sorrow; I…

W. Somerset Maugham

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

W. Somerset Maugham

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.

W. Somerset Maugham

“His love became a prison from which he longed to escape, but he had not the strength merely to open the door-that was all…

W. Somerset Maugham

I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness…

W. Somerset Maugham

If only the good were a little less heavy-footed

W. Somerset Maugham

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

W. Somerset Maugham

“A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?”

W. Somerset Maugham

“My dear, you used to be quite a dish; now you're quite a tureen.”

W. Somerset Maugham

“When people say they do not care what others thing of them, for the most part they deceive themselves”

W. Somerset Maugham