W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

"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."

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

"Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul."

"We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."

"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."

"Only a mediocre person is always at his best."

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

"There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action."

"Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to find in their butlers."

"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it."

"People who ask for your criticism want only praise."

"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."

"American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers."

"Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull."

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

"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."