W. Somerset Maugham: Thing

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

'"The Treasure"
Short Stories

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

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham book The Razor's Edge

The Razor's Edge (1943)

“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.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

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

“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.”

W. Somerset Maugham

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

“You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.”

W. Somerset Maugham The Circle

The Circle
Plays

“I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 2, p. 11

“What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably… have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Newsweek, 23 May, 1960

“By the time I was twenty-four I had constructed a complete system of philosophy. It rested on two principles: The Relativity of Things and The Circumferentiality of Man. I have since discovered that the first was not a very original discovery. It may be that the other was profound, but though I have racked my brains I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

section 66
The Summing Up (1938)

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

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 88

“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)

“I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 21, p. 79

“After all, a man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Arnold, in The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts (1921), p. 58-59
Plays

“Men seek but one thing in life — their pleasure.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

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

“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