W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

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

The Razor's Edge (1943)
Context: Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.

“A god that can be understood is not a god.”

"1901", p. 67
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

“It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent.”

The Razor's Edge (1943), p. 283

“Don't you know? Because American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.”

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 51
Context: You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent.

“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.”

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“I sometimes think,' said the Eternal, 'that the stars never shine more brightly than when reflected in the muddy waters of a wayside ditch.”

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 306

“Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.”

"The judgement seat", p. 316
Short Stories, Collected short stories 1

“Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love…”

'"The Treasure"
Short Stories

“He made one laugh sometimes by speaking the truth, but this is a form of humour which gains its force only by its unusualness; it would cease to amuse if it were commonly practised.”

p, 125
The Razor's Edge (1943)

“The modern clergyman has acquired in his study of the science which I believe is called exegesis an astonishing facility for explaining things away.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 44, p. 157

“But when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 1, p. 8

“Now it is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it…”

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 70

“Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.”

The Mixture As Before (1940) "The Treasure"
Short Stories

“I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the world.”

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 290

“…you know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.”

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 45

“You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.”

Source: Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930), p. 137

W. Somerset Maugham The Circle

The Circle
Plays

“It was such a lovely day I thought it was a pity to get up.”

“There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain.”

Our Betters (1923)
Plays

“He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.”

Source: The Summing Up (1938), Ch. 5, p. 12 http://books.google.com/books?id=2hNbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+only+one+thing+about+which+I+am+certain+and+this+is%22&pg=PA12#v=onepage- 13 http://books.google.com/books?id=2hNbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22that+there+is+very+little+about+which+one+can+be+certain%22&pg=PA13#v=onepage

“Religion is…a conspiracy of…priests to gain control over the people…”

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.”

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.”

"1896", p. 20
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

“In art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.”

The Bread-Winner (1930)
Plays

“The poignancy which all beauty has.”

p, 125
The Razor's Edge (1943)

“There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 23, p. 87

“Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance.”

Ch. 4, p. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ma3RAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+a+sort+of+man+who+pays+no+attention+to+his+good+actions+but+is+tormented+by+his+bad+ones+this+is+the+type+that+most+often+writes+about+himself%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage <br class="br">The Summing Up (1938)

“In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.”

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“I have always been convinced that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could save him.”

Source: A Writer's Notebook (1946), p. 48

“Things don't get any easier by putting them off.”

"The escape", p. 309
Short Stories, Collected short stories 1

“What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.”

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“I held my breath, for to me there is nothing more awe-inspiring than when a man discovers to you the nakedness of his soul.”

Points of View (1959) Ch. 1

“Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.”

"The pool", p. 140
Short Stories, Collected short stories 1

“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 66

“I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, or how much goodness in the reprobate.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 17, p. 64

“We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 11, p. 39

W. Somerset Maugham The Constant Wife

The Constant Wife (1927)
Plays

“Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.”

“I thought I should be a fool to allow work to interfere with a delight in the passing moment that I might never enjoy again so fully.”

The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), ch. 3

“It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise…”

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.”

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 223

“She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…”

"1901", p. 66
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

“Impropriety is the soul of wit.”

[1926, August, The Creative Impulse, Harper's Bazar, 41, 0017-7873, Hearst Corp., New York]
Revised with quotation in the 1931 compilation Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular.
Often misattributed to George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde
Short Stories

“When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 4, p. 17

W. Somerset Maugham The Circle

The Circle
Plays

“There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.”

“At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.”

Source: A Writer's Notebook (1946), p. 38. Maugham says something similar in The Summing up, Ch 22: "Love was only the dirty trick nature played on us to achieve the continuation of the species"

“He knew that women appreciated neither irony nor sarcasm, but simple jokes and funny stories. He was amply provided with both.”

Unidentified page
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

W. Somerset Maugham book Then and Now

Then and Now : A Novel (1946), p. 136

“I did not then know the besetting sin of woman, the passion to discuss her private affairs with anyone who is willing to listen.”

“The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.”

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 8, p. 31