“One’s like a closed bud, and most of what one reads and does has no effect at all; but there are certain things that have a peculiar significance for one, and they open a petal; and the petals open one… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“You know, I don’t believe in churches and parsons and all that,” she said, “but I believe in God, and I don’t believe He minds much about what you do as long as you keep your end up and help a lame dog over a stile when you can. And I think people on the whole are very nice, and… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share
“It was the period in Germany of Goethe’s highest fame. Notwithstanding his rather condescending attitude towards patriotism he had been adopted as the national poet, and seemed since the war of seventy to be one of the most significant glories of national unity. The enthusiastic seemed in the wildness of the Walpurgisnacht to hear the rattle of artillery at Gravelotte.… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share
If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be so grossly over-populated as it is now — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“It was an exquisite memorial to that than which the world offers but one thing more precious, to a friendship; and as Philip looked at it, he felt the tears come to his eyes. He thought of Hayward and his eager admiration for him when first they met, and how disillusion had come and then indifference, till nothing held them… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share
Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it. — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“She knew nothing about children. After it was settled that Philip should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she should… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“His heart went out to them. There was one quality which they had that he did not remember to have noticed in people before, and that was goodness. It had not occurred to him till now, but it was evidently the beauty of their goodness which attracted him. In theory he did not believe in it: if morality were no… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share
“Man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than to learn the multiplication table.” — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Philip came gradually to know the people he was to live with, and by fragments of conversation, some of it not meant for his… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“The bright hopes of youth had to be paid for at such a bitter price of disillusionment. Pain and disease and unhappiness weighed down… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
“Then he saw that the normal was the rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of body or of mind: he thought of all the people he had known (the whole world was like a sick-house, and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he saw a long procession, deformed in body and warped in mind, some… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share
“Next morning on her way to the factory Liza came up with Sally. They were both of them rather stale and bedraggled after the day’s outing; their fringes were ragged and untidily straying over their foreheads, their back hair, carelessly tied in a loose knot, fell over their necks and threatened completely to come down. Liza had not had time… — William Somerset Maugham Copy Share
