| | |

W. Somerset Maugham quotes

edits filters

“Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“Men seek but one thing in life—their pleasure.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“He saw that nothing was good and nothing was evil; things were merely adapted to an end.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“The bright hopes of youth had to be paid for at such a bitter price of disillusionment.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“There was neither good nor bad there. There were just facts. It was life.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“What d'you suppose I care if I'm a gentleman or not? If I were a gentleman I shouldn't waste my time with a vulgar slut like you.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even had a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with the one than happiness with the other.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“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, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“Benevolence is often very peremptory.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“Life was not so horrible if it was meaningless, and he faced it with a strange sense of power.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.” W. Somerset Maugham, “The Moon and Sixpence” - 1919

“It was one of the queer things of life that you saw a person every day for months and were so intimate with him that you could not imagine existence without him; then separation came, and everything went on in the same way, and the companion who...” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

Related topics

love men life happiness praise pain good reciprocity passion madness women youth mind fate destiny relationship meaning suffering pleasure evil

Related sources

Of Human Bondage (22)
The Moon and Sixpence (1)