Time Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

“If the future was so vague it meant perhaps that she was destined never to see it.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The past was finished; let the dead bury their dead.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

Only mediocre people are at the best all the time.

— W. Somerset Maugham

By the time an actor knows how to act any sort of part he is often too old to act any but…

— W. Somerset Maugham

I'm only twenty-five. If I've made a mistake I have time to correct it.

— W. Somerset Maugham

The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

Don't think of the past; the only thing that matters is the everlasting present

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The time has passed when he was an object of ridicule, and it is no longer a mark of eccentricity to defend…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“He took you by force–yes, he was drunk at the time. It’s not the first time that’s happened to a woman and…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst…

— W. Somerset Maugham

When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself?

— W. Somerset Maugham

There's nothing the world loves more than a ready-made description which they can hang on to a man, and so save themselves…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Oh, my dear, it's rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he's in love with you." "Didn't…

— W. Somerset Maugham

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

— W. Somerset Maugham

“When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment…

— W. Somerset Maugham

It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“I can't afford to let my judgement be clouded by any feeling that I might have for a human being. You are…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Now listen. If I think he’s awful we’ll just talk about the weather and the crops for a few minutes and then…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Philip looked at his own work. How could you tell whether there was anything in it or whether you were wasting your…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one…

— W. Somerset Maugham

From the earliest time the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser, and before the young had discovered…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“Time, because it is so fleeting, time, because it is beyond recall, is the most precious of human goods and to squander…

— 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

It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The Absolute. Reality. You can't say what it is; you can only say what it isn't. It's inexpressible. It's nowhere and everywhere.…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“The first time he talked in that way he said something that I've never forgotten, because it horrified me; he said that…

— W. Somerset Maugham

The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried [phrase-making] to such a height of perfection and have…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have…

— W. Somerset Maugham

It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.

— W. Somerset Maugham

You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you…

— W. Somerset Maugham

Perfect is determined in shortened measures of time, not over long periods of time or lifetimes. It would be unnatural.

— W. Somerset Maugham

The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.

— W. Somerset Maugham

“What d'you suppose I care if I'm a gentleman or not? If I were a gentleman I shouldn't waste my time with…

— 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…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“I don’t see why the things we believe absolutely now shouldn’t be just as wrong as what they believed in the past.’…

— W. Somerset Maugham