Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham

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

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

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

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

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

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.

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

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915

He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
"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.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915

It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.
"Of Human Bondage", 1915