There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
I never spend more than one hour in a gallery. That is as long as one's power of appreciation persists. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Art, unless it leads to right action, is no more than the opium of an intelligentsia. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
An art is only great and significant if it is one that all may enjoy. The art of a clique is but… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Art, if it is to be reckoned as one of the great values of life, must teach man humility, tolerance, wisdom and… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“It is a grotesque misapprehension which sees in art no more than a craft comprehensible perfectly only to the craftsman: art is… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“He was occupied with the forming of a pattern out of the manifold chaos of life, and the materials with which he… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“The disadvantages and dangers of the author’s calling are offset by an advantage so great as to make all its difficulties, disappointments,… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Oh, my dear fellow, if you want to be a gentleman you must give up being an artist. They’ve got nothing to… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Perhaps it would have been possible to see in him a new Prometheus...the hero who for the good of mankind exposes himself… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“It gives him spiritual freedom. To him life is a tragedy and by his gift of creation he enjoys the catharsis a… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“I had not then acquired the technique that I flatter myself now enables me to deal competently with the works of modern… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
It is not for nothing that artists have called their works the children of their brains and likened the pains of production… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“There is no more merit in having read a thousand books than in having ploughed a thousand fields.” — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner. — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
