Author: W. Somerset Maugham

Quotes

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

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

- W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

- W. Somerset Maugham

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

- W. Somerset Maugham

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

- W. Somerset Maugham

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

- W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

- W. Somerset Maugham

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

- W. Somerset Maugham

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.

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.

- W. Somerset Maugham

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.

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.

- W. Somerset Maugham

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