12 Posts found for Author: W. Somerset Maugham

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one’s own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody’s else advice.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: Experience, Learning, Personal Improvement

Money is like a sixth sense without which one cannot enjoy the other five.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subject: Material Possessions

I don’t know what it is that makes someone love you, but whatever it is, it’s the only thing that matters, and if it isn’t there you won’t create it by kindness, or generosity, or anything of that sort.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subject: Love

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

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: Beauty | Aesthetics, Thought | Inquiry

He was intensely moved by the grandeur of the struggle for life, and the ethical rule which it suggested seemed to fit in with his predispositions. He said to himself that might was right. Society stood on one side, an organism with its own laws of growth and self-preservation, while the individual stood on the other. The actions which were to the advantage of society … [ Read more ]

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subject: Life & Society

To invent a story interesting in itself apart from the telling is a difficult thing, the power to do it is a gift of nature, it cannot be acquired by taking thought, and it is a gift that very few people have.
– from Introduction by Jane Smiley

[…]‌

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that … [ Read more ]

Author: W. Somerset Maugham

But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They’re both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of … [ Read more ]

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: America, Freedom | Liberty, International, Life & Society

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of habit.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement

It is a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: Life & Society, Success / Failure

It is a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subjects: Life & Society, Perception | Observation

When love and duty are one then grace is within you. – Mother Superior in The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maughan)

Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subject: Uncategorized