W. Somerset Maugham Quotes, Thoughts and images

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

The most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing.

Tolerance is only another name for indifference.

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.

Life isn't long enough for love and art.

Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it.

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers.

Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.

Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.

There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.

Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

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

The well dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice

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

The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.

Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.

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

There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood.