Wells Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

22 Wells quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

All Wells quotes W. Somerset Maugham’s page

Maugham’s 22 reflections use wells as a backdrop for his keen eye on human behavior. The prose reads like a series of short scenes, each offering a glimpse into the everyday drama that surrounds us.

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Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well

W. Somerset Maugham

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

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Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.

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You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It doesn't make any difference to me now.

W. Somerset Maugham

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The well dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice

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

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It must be that to govern a nation you need a specific talent and that this may very well exist without general…

W. Somerset Maugham

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"Do you like card tricks?" "No, I hate card tricks," I answered. "Well, I'll just show you this one." He showed me…

W. Somerset Maugham

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It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - Of…

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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;…

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The first duty of a woman is to be pretty, the second is to be well-groomed, and the third is never to…

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

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You know, when one's in love,' I said, 'and things go all wrong, one's terribly unhappy and one thinks one won't ever…

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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…

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No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh,…

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All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights,…

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I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do…

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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

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You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by…

W. Somerset Maugham

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The last words he said to me when I bade him good-night were: Tell Amy it's no good coming after me. Anyhow,…

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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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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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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

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“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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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“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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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

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“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

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

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If only the good were a little less heavy-footed

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

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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