A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her…but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.
- W. Somerset Maugham

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It’s a relief then to deal with a man who isn’t quite so delightful but a little more sincere.
- W. Somerset Maugham

One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
- W. Somerset Maugham

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.
- W. Somerset Maugham

American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
- W. Somerset Maugham

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
- W. Somerset Maugham

You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.
- W. Somerset Maugham

I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart’s in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
- W. Somerset Maugham

A man ought to work. That’s what he’s here for. That’s how he contributes to the welfare of the community.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Unfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
- W. Somerset Maugham

A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?
- W. Somerset Maugham

Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it’s a mistake to make a habit out of it.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Impropriety is the soul of wit.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Tolerance is another word for indifference.
- 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.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Love is what happens to a man and woman who don’t know each other.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
- W. Somerset Maugham

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.
- W. Somerset Maugham

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

You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
- W. Somerset Maugham

I’m not only my spirit buy my body, and who can decide how much I, my individual self, am conditioned by the accident of my body? Would Byron have been Byron but for his club foot, or Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky without his epilepsy?
- W. Somerset Maugham

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn’t want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.
- W. Somerset Maugham

When you’re eighteen your emotions are violent, but they’re not durable.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Death doesn’t affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn’t concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
- W. Somerset Maugham

A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn’t pretty it won’t do her much good.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
- W. Somerset Maugham

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
- W. Somerset Maugham

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Men seek but one thing in life – their pleasure.
- W. Somerset Maugham

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Women’s hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
- W. Somerset Maugham

We didn’t think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights.
- W. Somerset Maugham

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