W. Somerset Maugham: Quotes about people

W. Somerset Maugham was British playwright, novelist, short story writer. Explore interesting quotes on people.
W. Somerset Maugham: 316 quotes19 likes

“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 50

“Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 42, p. 147

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

W. Somerset Maugham book The Razor's Edge

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“The Riviera isn't only a sunny place for shady people.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Strictly Personal, p. 156 (Doubleday, Doran and co., inc., 1941)

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

W. Somerset Maugham book The Razor's Edge

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 67

“The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 182

“Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.”

W. Somerset Maugham

"1922", p. 196
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

“…when you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right…”

W. Somerset Maugham

Source: Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930), p. 166

“One of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 33, p. 119

“If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.”

W. Somerset Maugham

"1901", p. 76. Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing". Sometimes misattributed to Bertrand Russell or Anatole France
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

“Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.”

W. Somerset Maugham

"1892", p. 1
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

“It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Source: Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930), p. 14

“He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 116