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Culture Is Not Just An Ornament; It Is The Expression Of A Nation's Character, And At The Same Time It Is A Powerful Instrument To Mould Character. The End Of Culture Is Right Living.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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Culture Is Not Just

W. Somerset Maugham

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Culture Is Not Just An Ornament; It Is The Expression Of A Nation's Character, And At The Same Time It Is A Powerful Instrument To Mould Character. The End Of Culture Is Right Living.

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More From W. Somerset Maugham

Marriage Is A Very Good Thing, But I Think It's A Mistake To Make A Habit Out Of It.

The Secret To Life Is Meaningless Unless You Discover It Yourself.

She Had No Mercy. He Looked At Her Neck And Thought How He Would Like To Jab It With The Knife He Had For His Muffin. He Knew Enough Anatomy To Make Pretty Certain Of Getting The Carotid Artery. And At The Same Time He Wanted To Cover Her Pale, Thin Face With Kisses.

There's Always One Who Loves And One Who Lets Himself Be Loved.

Like All Weak Men He Laid An Exaggerated Stress On Not Changing One's Mind.

There In The Mist, Enormous, Majestic, Silent And Terrible, Stood The Great Wall Of China. Solitarily, With The Indifference Of Nature Herself, It Crept Up The Mountain Side And Slipped Down To The Depth Of The Valley.

Every Production Of An Artist Should Be The Expression Of An Adventure Of His Soul.

Do You Absolutely Despise Me, Walter?" "no." He Hesitated And His Voice Was Strange. "i Despise Myself.

I Knew That Suffering Did Not Enoble; It Degraded. It Made Men Selfish, Petty And Suspicious. It Absorbed Them In Small Things...it Made Them Less Than Men; And I Wrote Ferociously That We Learn Resignation Not By Our Own Suffering, But By The Suffering Of Others.

Suffering Of Others

Men Seek But One Thing In Life - Their Pleasure.

Excess On Occasion Is Exhilarating. It Prevents Moderation From Acquiring The Deadening Effect Of A Habit.

The Humour Of Dostoievsky Is The Humour Of A Barloafer Who Ties A Kettle To A Dog's Tail.

The Most Valuable Thing I Have Learned From Life Is To Regret Nothing.

I'd Sooner Be Smashed Into A Mangled Pulp By A Bus When We Cross The Street Than Look Forward To A Life Like Yours.

There Are Men Who Are Possessed By An Urge So Strong To Do Some Particular Thing That They Can't Help Themselves, They've Got To Do It. They're Prepared To Sacrifice Everything To Satisfy Their Yearning.

But The Only Important Thing In A Book Is The Meaning It Has For You; It May Have Other And Much More Profound Meanings For The Critic, But At Second-hand They Can Be Of Small Service To You.

The Almighty Can Hardly Be Such A Fool As The Churches Make Out.

I Travel Because I Like To Move From Place To Place, I Enjoy The Sense Of Freedom It Gives Me, It Pleases Me To Be Rid Of Ties, Responsibilities, Duties, I Like The Unknown; I Meet Odd People Who Amuse Me For A Moment And Sometimes Suggest A Theme For A Composition; I Am Often Tired Of Myself And I Have A Notion That By Travel I Can Add To My Personality And So Change Myself A Little. I Do Not Bring Back From The Journey Quite The Same Self That I Took

Why Did You Look At The Sunset?' Philip Answered With His Mouth Full: Because I Was Happy.

You Are Not Angry With People When You Laugh At Them. Humour Teaches Tolerance, And The Humorist, With A Smile And Perhaps A Sigh, Is More Likely To Shrug His Shoulders Than To Condemn.

Words Have Weight, Sound And Appearance; It Is Only By Considering These That You Can Write A Sentence That Is Good To Look At And Good To Listen To.

A Little Smoke Lost In The Air, That Was The Life Of A Man.

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.

There's No One As Transparent As The Person Who Thinks He's Devilish Deep.

The End Of Culture Is Right Living

Kant Thought Things, Not Because They Were True, But Because He Was Kant.

I'm Afraid You've Thought Me A Bigger Fool Than I Am.

I Could Have Forgiven It If He'd Fallen Desperately In Love With Someone And Gone Off With Her. I Should Have Thought That Natural. I Shouldn't Really Have Blamed Him. I Should Have Thought He Was Led Away. Men Are So Weak, And Women Are So Unscrupulous.

It's Very Hard To Be A Gentleman And A Writer.

Some Of Us Look For The Way In Opium And Some In God, Some Of Us In Whiskey And Some In Love. It Is All The Same Way And It Leads Nowhither.

She Was A Fool And He Knew It And Because He Loved Her It Had Made No Difference.

Any Society That Values Wealth Above Freedom Will Lose Its Freedom, And Will Ultimately Lose Its Wealth As Well

Vaguely, As When You Are Studying A Foreign Language And Read A Page Which At First You Can Make Nothing Of, Till A Word Or A Sentence Gives You A Clue; And On A Sudden Suspicion, As It Were, Of The Sense Flashes Across Your Troubled Wits, Vaguely She Gained An Inkling Into The Workings Of Walter's Mind. It Was Like A Dark And Ominous Landscape Seen By A Flash Of Lightning And In A Moment Hidden Again By The Night. She Shuddered At What She Saw.

We Learn Resignation Not By Our Own Suffering, But By The Suffering Of Others.

Suffering Of Others

The Riviera Isn't Only A Sunny Place For Shady People.

I Do Not Think You Want Too Much Sincerity In Society. It Would Be Like An Iron Girder In A House Of Cards.

I Like Manual Labor. Whenever I've Got Waterlogged With Study, I've Taken A Spell Of It And Found It Spiritually Invigorating.

A Woman Will Always Sacrifice Herself If You Give Her The Opportunity. It Is Her Favourite Form Of Self Indulgence.

The First Duty Of A Woman Is To Be Pretty, The Second Is To Be Well-groomed, And The Third Is Never To Contradict.

In Business Sharp Practice Sometimes Succeeds, But In Art Honesty Is Not Only The Best But The Only Policy.

Writing Is The Supreme Solace.

No Woman Is Worth More Than A Fiver Unless You're In Love With Her. Then She's Worth All She Costs You.

Just As The Painter Thinks With His Brush And Paints The Novelist Thinks With His Story.

People Who Ask For Your Criticism Want Only Praise.

People Do Tell A Writer Things That They Don't Tell Others. I Don't Know Why, Unless It Is That Having Read One Or Two Of His Books They Feel On Peculiarly Intimate Terms With Him; Or It May Be That They Dramatize Themselves And, Seeing Themselves As It Were As Characters In A Novel, Are Ready To Be As Open With Him As They Imagine The Characters Of His Invention Are.

I Do Not Believe They Are Right Who Say That The Defects Of Famous Men Should Be Ignored. I Think It Is Better That We Should Know Them. Then, Though We Are Conscious Of Having Faults As Glaring As Theirs, We Can Believe That That Is No Hindrance To Our Achieving Also Something Of Their Virtues.

The Worst Of Having So Much Tact Was That You Never Quite Knew Whether Other People Were Acting Naturally Or Being Tactful Too. [the Human Element]

It Was Such A Lovely Day I Thought It A Pity To Get Up.

Sometimes A Man Hits Upon A Place To Which He Mysteriously Feels That He Belongs.

I Have An Idea That The Only Thing Which Makes It Possible To Regard This World We Live In Without Disgust Is The Beauty Which Now And Then Men Create Out Of The Chaos.

There Is No More Merit In Being Able To Attach A Correct Description To A Picture Than In Being Able To Find Out What Is Wrong With A Stalled Motorcar. In Each Case It Is Special Knowledge.

Of All The Hokum With Which This Country [america] Is Riddled, The Most Odd Is The Common Notion That It Is Free Of Class Distinctions.

I Wonder How Anyone Can Have The Face To Condemn Others When He Reflects Upon His Own Thoughts.

I Don't Think That Women Ought To Sit Down At Table With Men. It Ruins Conversation And I'm Sure It's Very Bad For Them. It Puts Ideas In Their Heads, And Women Are Never At Ease With Themselves When They Have Ideas.

Often The Best Way To Overcome Desire Is To Satisfy It.

I Promised Myself That If Ever I Had Some Money That I Would Savor A Cigar Each Day After Lunch And Dinner. This Is The Only Resolution Of My Youth That I Have Kept, And The Only Realized Ambition Which Has Not Brought Disillusion.

She Plunged Into A Sea Of Platitudes, And With The Powerful Breast Stroke Of A Channel Swimmer Made Her Confident Way Towards The White Cliffs Of The Obvious.

Refecting On The High Divorce Rate In America As Contrasted With England "american Women Expect To Find In Their Husbands A Perfection That English Women Only Hope To Find In Their Butlers

The Author Always Loads His Dice, But He Must Never Let The Reader See That He Has Done So.

It Was Such A Beautiful Day I Decided To Stay In Bed.

Advice To First Year Medical Students: In Anatomy, It Is Better To Have Learned And Lost Than Never To Have Learned At All.

It Is Unfair To Expect A Politician To Live In Private Up To The Statements He Makes In Public.

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.

What Does Democracy Come Down To? The Persuasive Power Of Slogans Invented By Wily Self-seeking Politicians.

Usage Is The Only Test. I Prefer A Phrase That Is Easy And Unaffected To A Phrase That Is Grammatical.

Women Are Often Under The Impression That Men Are Much More Madly In Love With Them Than They Really Are.

A State Of Reverie Does Not Avoid Reality, It Accedes To Reality.

She [sadie Thompson] Gathered Herself Together. No One Could Describe The Scorn Of Her Expression Or The Contemptuous Hatred She Put Into Her Answer. "you Men! You Filthy Dirty Pigs! You're All The Same, All Of You. Pigs! Pigs!"

There Are Men Whose Sense Of Humour Is So Ill Developed That They Still Bear A Grudge Against Copernicus Because He Dethroned Them From The Central Position In The Universe. They Feel It A Personal Affront That They Can No Longer Consider Themselves The Pivot Upon Which Turns The Whole Of Created Things.

When You Have Loved As She Has Loved, You Grow Old Beautifully.

I'm Only Twenty-five. If I've Made A Mistake I Have Time To Correct It.

Simplicity And Naturalness Are The Truest Marks Of Distinction.

It Is Not Difficult To Be Unconventional In The Eyes Of The World When Your Unconventionality Is But The Convention Of Your Set.

Yet Magic Is No More Than The Art Of Employing Consciously Invisible Means To Produce Visible Effects. Will, Love And Imagination Are Magic Powers That Everyone Possesses; And Whoever Knows How To Develop Them To Their Fullest Extent Is A Magician. Magic Has But One Dogma, Namely, That The Seen Is The Measure Of The Unseen.

So Long As Some Are Strong And Some Are Weak, The Weak Will Be Driven To The Wall.

The Subjunctive Mood Is In Its Death Throes, And The Best Thing To Do Is To Put It Out Of Its Misery As Soon As Possible.

The Writer Is More Concerned To Know Than To Judge.

Let Us Develop The Resources Of Our Land, Call Forth Its Powers, Build Up Its Institutions, Promote All Its Great Interests, And See Whether We Also, In Our Day And Generation, May Not Perform Something Worthy To Be Remembered.

Self Improvement

The Value Of Culture Is Its Effect On Character. It Avails Nothing Unless It Ennobles And Strengthens That. Its Use Is For Life. Its Aim Is Not Beauty But Goodness.

Art Is A Manifestation Of Emotion, And Emotion Speaks A Language That All May Understand.

I Am Told That Today Rather More Than 60 Per Cent Of The Men Who Go To The Universities Go On A Government Grant. This Is A New Class That Has Entered Upon The Scene ... They Are Scum.

Art Is Merely The Refuge Which The Ingenious Have Invented, When They Were Supplied With Food And Women, To Escape The Tediousness Of Life.

The Trouble Is That Thinking Looks Like Loafing. Who Wants To Pay People For Daydreaming?

Men Have Ascribed To God Imperfections That They Would Deplore In Themselves.

Unconsciously, Perhaps, We Treasure The Power We Have Over People By Their Regard For Our Opinion Of Them, And We Hate Those Upon Whom We Have No Such Influence.

Excess On Occasion Is Exhilarating. It Prevents Moderation From Acquiring The Deadening Effect Of A Habit. It's A Funny Thing About Life; If You Refuse To Accept Anything But The Best, You Very Often Get It. Like All Weak Men He Laid An Exaggerated Stress On Not Changing One's Mind.

A Man Who Is A Politician At Forty Is A Statesman At Three Score And Ten. It Is At This Age, When He Would Be Too Old To Be A Clerk Or A Gardener Or A Police-court Magistrate, That He Is Ripe To Govern A Country.

Marco Polo Tells The Tale Of The Old Man In The Mountains And How He Recruits New Members To His Band Of Assassins By Means Of Drugs, Beautiful Women, Lush Gardens, And Religious Promises. The Unfortunate Thing About This World Is That The Good Habits Are Much Easier To Give Up Than The Bad Ones.

It Must Be That There Is Something Naturally Absurd In A Sincere Emotion, Though Why There Should Be I Cannot Imagine, Unless It Is That Man, The Ephemeral Inhabitant Of An Insignificant Planet, With All His Pain And All His Striving Is But A Jest In An Eternal Mind.

Love Is What Happens To Men And Women Who Don't Know Each Other.

The Most Useful Thing About A Principle Is That It Can Always Be Sacrificed To Expediency.

Perfection Has One Grave Defect: It Is Apt To Be Dull.

Sentimentality Is The Only Sentiment That Rubs You The Wrong Way.

The Dead Look So Terribly Dead When They're Dead.

Some People Read For Instruction, Which Is Praiseworthy, And Some For Pleasure, Which Is Innocent, But Not A Few Read From Habit, And I Suppose That This Is Neither Innocent Or Praiseworthy. Of That Lamentable Company Am I. Conversation After A Time Bores Me, Games Tire Me And My Own Thoughts, Which We Are Told Are The Unfailing Resource Of A Sensible Man, Have A Tendency To Run Dry. Then I Fly To My Book As The Opium-smoker To His Pipe.

It's Always Difficult To Make Conversation With A Drunk, And There's No Denying It, The Sober Are At A Disadvantage With Him.

It Is An Illusion That Youth Is Happy, An Illusion Of Those Who Have Lost It.

It Has Been Said That Good Prose Should Resemble The Conversation Of A Well-bred Man.

As If A Woman Ever Loved A Man For His Virtue.

I Made Up My Mind Long Ago That Life Was Too Short To Do Anything For Myself That I Could Pay Others To Do For Me.

The Ballet. I Saw In The Fugitive Beauty Of A Dancer's Gesture A Symbol Of Life. It Was Achieved At The Cost Of Unending Effort But, With All The Forces Of Gravity Against It, A Fleeting Poise In Mid-air, A Lovely Attitude Worthy To Be Made Immortal In A Bas-relief, It Was Lost As Soon As It Was Gained And There Remained No More Than The Memory Of An Exquisite Emotion. So Life, Lived Variously And Largely, Becomes A Work Of Art Only When Brought To Its Beautiful Conclusion And Is Reduced To Nothingness In The Moment When It Arrives At Perfection.

When She Liked Anyone It Was Quite Natural For Her To Go To Bed With Him. She Never Thought Twice About It. It Was Not Vice; It Wasn't Lasciviousness; It Was Her Nature. She Gave Herself As Naturally As The Sun Gives Heat Or The Flowers Their Perfume. It Was A Pleasure To Her And She Liked To Give Pleasure To Others.

Most People Are Such Fools That It Is Really No Great Compliment To Say That Someone Is Above The Average.

It Is Bad Enough To Know The Past; It Would Be Intolerable To Know The Future.

Music-hall Songs Provide The Dull With Wit, Just As Proverbs Provide Them With Wisdom.

It Takes Two To Make A Love Affair And A Mans Meat Is Too Often A Woman's Poison.

People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

You Will Find As You Grow Older That The First Thing Needful To Make The World A Tolerable Place To Live In Is To Recognize The Inevitable Selfishness Of Humanity. You Demand Unselfishness From Others, Which Is A Preposterous Claim That They Should Sacrifice Their Desires To Yours. Why Should They? When You Are Reconciled To The Fact That Each Is For Himself In The World You Will Ask Less From Your Fellows. They Will Not Disappoint You, And You Will Look Upon Them More Charitably. Men Seek But One Thing In Life -- Their Pleasure.

Sometimes People Carry To Such Perfection The Mask They Have Assumed That In Due Course They Actually Become The Person They Seem.

A Good Story Is Obviously A Difficult Thing To Invent, But Its Difficulty Is A Poor Reason For Despising It.

He Exulted In The Possession Of Himself Once More; He Realized How Much Of The Delight Of The World He Had Lost When He Was Absorbed In That Madness Which They Called Love; He Had Had Enough Of It; He Did Not Want To Be In Love Anymore If Love Was That.

Few Misfortunes Can Befall A Boy Which Bring Worse Consequence Than To Have A Really Affectionate Mother.

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.

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.

He Knew That All Things Human Are Transitory And Therefore That It Must Cease One Day Or Another. He Looked Forward To That Day With Eager Longing. Love Was Like A Parasite In His Heart, Nourishing A Hateful Existence On His Life's Blood; It Absorbed His Existence So Intensely That He Could Take Pleasure In Nothing Else.

"do You Like Card Tricks?" "no, I Hate Card Tricks," I Answered. "well, I`ll Just Show You This One." He Showed Me Three.

Life Wouldn’t Be Worth Living If I Worried Over The Future As Well As The Present. When Things Are At Their Worst I Find Something Always Happens.

Culture Is Not Just An Ornament; It Is The Expression Of A Nation's Character, And At The Same Time It Is A Powerful Instrument To Mould Character. The End Of Culture Is Right Living.

For Men And Women Are Not Only Themselves; They Are Also The Region In Which They Are Born, The City Apartment Or Farm In Which They Learnt To Walk, The Games They Played As Children, The Old Wives Tales They Overheard, The Food They Ate, The Schools They Attended, The Sports They Followed, The Poets They Read, And The God They Believed In. It Is All These Things That Have Made Them What They Are, And These Are The Things That You Can't Come To Know By Hearsay.

Perhaps Some Deep-rooted Atavism Urges The Wanderer Back To Lands Which His Ancestors Left In The Dim Beginnings Of History. Sometimes A Man Hits Upon A Place To Which He Mysteriously Feels That He Belongs. Here Is The Home He Sought, And He Will Settle Amid Scenes That He Has Never Seen Before, Among Men He Has Never Known, As Though They Were Familiar To Him From His Birth. Here At Last He Finds Rest.

If A Man Hasn't What's Necessary To Make A Woman Love Him, It's His Fault, Not Hers.

There Are Three Rules For Writing A Novel. Unfortunately, No One Knows What They Are.

The Humorist Has A Good Eye For The Humbug; He Does Not Always Recognize The Saint.

If Truth Is A Value It Is Because It Is True And Not Because It Is Brave To Speak It.

I Have An Idea That The Only Thing Which Makes It Possible To Regard This World We Live In Without Disgust Is The Beauty Which Now And Then Men Create Out Of The Chaos. The Pictures They Paint, The Music They Compose, The Books They Write, And The Lives They Lead. Of All These The Richest In Beauty Is The Beautiful Life. That Is The Perfect Work Of Art.

I Am Told That Today Rather More Than 60 Per Cent Of The Men Who Go To University Go On A Government Grant. This Is A New Class That Has Entered Upon The Scene. It Is The White-collar Proletariat. They Do Not Go To University To Acquire Culture But To Get A Job, And When They Have Got One, Scamp It. They Have No Manners And Are Woefully Unable To Deal With Any Social Predicament. Their Idea Of A Celebration Is To Go To A Public House And Drink Six Beers. They Are Mean, Malicious And Envious . They Are Scum.

It Is Unsafe To Take Your Reader For More Of A Fool Than He Is.

It Does The Heart Good To Look At You.

The Love That Lasts Longest Is The Love That Is Never Returned.

Art Is Triumphant When It Can Use Convention As An Instrument Of Its Own Purpose.

Beauty Is Also A Gift Of God, One Of The Most Rare And Precious, And We Should Be Thankful If We Are Happy Enough To Possess It And Thankful, If We Are Not, That Others Possess It For Our Pleasure.

A Mother Only Does Her Children Harm If She Makes Them The Only Concern Of Her Life.

Beauty Is Something Wonderful And Strange That The Artist Fashions Out Of The Chaos Of The World In The Torment Of His Soul.

When You Choose Your Friends, Don't Be Short-changed By Choosing Personality Over Character.

With The Superciliousness Of Extreme Youth, I Put Thirty-five As The Utmost Limit At Which A Man Might Fall In Love Without Making A Fool Of Himself.

Falling In Love

Throw Yourself Into The Hurly-burly Of Life. It Doesn't Matter How Many Mistakes You Make, What Unhappiness You Have To Undergo. It Is All Your Material ... Don't Wait For Experience To Come To You; Go Out After Experience. Experience Is Your Material.

Have Common Sense And Stick To The Point.

People Talk Of Beauty Lightly, And Having No Feeling For Words, They Use That One Carelessly, So That It Loses Its Force; And The Thing It Stands For, Sharing Its Name With A Hundred Trivial Objects, Is Deprived Of Dignity. They Call Beautiful A Dress, A Dog, A Sermon; And When They Are Face To Face With Beauty Cannot Recognise It.

Art, Unless It Leads To Right Action, Is No More Than The Opium Of An Intelligentsia.

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.

Congratulations

Through The History Of The World There Have Always Been Exploiters And Exploited. There Always Will Be ... Because The Great Mass Of Men Are Made By Nature To Be Slaves, They Are Unfit To Control Themselves, And For Their Own Good Need Masters.

And I Have The Sunset, And The Tuscan Wine, And The White Teeth Of The Women In Rome. I Am A Traveler In Romance.

The Best Style Is The Style You Don't Notice.

Creative Writing

There Is Only One Way To Win Hearts And That Is To Make Oneself Like Unto Those Of Whom One Would Be Loved.

I Do Not Confer Praise Or Blame: I Accept. I Am The Measure Of All Things. I Am The Center Of The World.

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.

The Great Tragedy Of Life Is Not That Men Perish, But That They Cease To Love.

Perhaps The Most Important Use Of Money - It Saves Time. Life Is So Short, And There's So Much To Do, One Can't Afford To Waste A Minute; And Just Think How Much You Waste, For Instance, In Walking From Place To Place Instead Of Going By Bus And In Going By Bus Instead Of By Taxi.

I Don't Know Why It Is That The Religious Never Ascribe Common Sense To God.

It's No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk, Because All Of The Forces Of The Universe Were Bent On Spilling It.

You Must Not Pursue A Success, But Fly From It.

Love Is Not Always Blind And There Are Few Things That Cause Greater Wretchedness Than To Love With All Your Heart Someone Who You Know Is Unworthy Of Love.

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry.

Reverie Is The Groundwork Of Creative Imagination; It Is The Privilege Of The Artist That With Him It Is Not As With Other Men An Escape From Reality, But The Means By Which He Accedes To It.

If You Can Tell Stories, Create Characters, Devise Incidents, And Have Sincerity And Passion, It Doesn't Matter A Damn How You Write.

The Arguments For Immortality, Weak When You Take Them One By One, Are No More Cogent When You Take Them Together... For My Part, I Cannot See How Consciousness Can Persist When Its Physical Basis Has Been Destroyed, And I Am Too Sure Of The Interconnection Of My Body And My Mind To Think That Any Survival Of My My Consciousness Apart From My Body Would Be In Any Sense A Survival Of Myself.

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry. It Is Its End And Aim. It Is The Sublimest Activity Of The Human Mind. It Is The Achievement Of Beauty And Delicacy. The Writer Of Prose Can Only Step Aside When The Poet Passes.

If It Is Necessary Sometimes To Lie To Others, It Is Always Despicable To Lie To Oneself.

I Thought It Was Only In Revealed Religion That A Mistranslation Improved The Sense.

It's No Good Trying To Keep Up Old Friendships. It's Painful For Both Sides. The Fact Is, One Grows Out Of People, And The Only Thing Is To Face It.

I Always Find It More Difficult To Say The Things I Mean Than The Things I Don't.

Impropriety Is The Soul Of Wit.

They Say A Woman Always Remembers Her First Lover With Affection; But Perhaps She Does Not Always Remember Him.

For If The Proper Study Of Mankind Is Man, It Is Evidently More Sensible To Occupy Yourself With The Coherent, Substantial And Significant Creatures Of Fiction Than With The Irrational And Shadowy Figures Of Real Life.

Occupy Yourself

Tolerance Is Another Word For Indifference.

Old Age Has Its Pleasures, Which, Though Different, Are Not Less Than The Pleasures Of Youth.

Cronshaw Stopped For A Moment To Drink. He Had Pondered For Twenty Years The Problem Whether He Loved Liquor Because It Made Him Talk Or Whether He Loved Conversation Because It Made Him Thirsty.

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.

Follow Your Inclinations With Due Regard To The Policeman Round The Corner.

One Can Be Very Much In Love With A Woman Without Wishing To Spend The Rest Of One's Life With Her.

If You Want To Eat Well In England, Eat Three Breakfasts.

Heaven Knows What Pains The Author Has Been At, What Bitter Experience He Has Endured And What Heartache Suffered, To Give Some Chance Reader A Few Hours' Relaxation Or To While Away The Tedium Of A Journey.

Failure Make People Bitter And Cruel. Success Improves The Character Of The Man.

Common Sense And Nature Will Do A Lot To Make The Pilgrimage Of Life Not Too Difficult.

Genius Is Talent Provided With Ideals.

Money Is Like A Sixth Sense Without Which You Cannot Make A Complete Use Of The Other Five.

In Civilized Communities Men's Idiosyncrasies Are Mitigated By The Necessity Of Conforming To Certain Rules Of Behavior. Culture Is A Mask That Hides Their Faces.

The Important Thing Was To Love Rather Than To Be Loved.

But What Is Criticism? Criticism Is Purely Destructive; Anyone Can Destroy, But Not Everyone Can Build Up.

Beauty Is An Ecstasy; It Is As Simple As Hunger.

I've Always Been Interested In People, But I've Never Liked Them.

It Is Clear That Men Accept An Immediate Pain Rather Than An Immediate Pleasure, But Only Because They Expect A Greater Pleasure In The Future. Often The Pleasure Is Illusory, But Their Error In Calculation Is No Refutation Of The Rule.

You Tend To Close Your Eyes To Truth, Beauty And Goodness Because They Give No Scope To Your Sense Of The Ridiculous.

She Could Not Admit But That He Had Remarkable Qualities, Sometimes She Thought That There Was Even In Him A Strange And Unattractive Greatness; It Was Curious Then That She Could Not Love Him, But Loved Still A Man Whose Worthlessness Was Now So Clear To Her.

A Good Style Should Show No Signs Of Effort. What Is Written Should Seem A Happy Accident.

It Is Well To Remember That Grammar Is Common Speech Formulated.

I Am Sick Of This Way Of Life. The Weariness And Sadness Of Old Age Make It Intolerable. I Have Walked With Death In Hand, And Death's Own Hand Is Warmer Than My Own. I Don't Wish To Live Any Longer.

Self-control Might Be As Passionate And As Active As The Surrender To Passion.

We Have Long Passed The Victorian Era When Asterisks Were Followed After A Certain Interval By A Baby.

Illusions Are Like Umbrellas - You No Sooner Get Them Than You Lose Them, And The Loss Always Leaves A Little Painful Wound.

I Never Spend More Than One Hour In A Gallery. That Is As Long As One's Power Of Appreciation Persists.

A Soul Is A Troublesome Possession, And When Man Developed It He Lost The Garden Of Eden.

I Am Afraid Of People With Too Much Charm. They Devour You. In The End You Are Made A Sacrifice To The Exercise Of Their Fascinating Gift And Their Insincerity.

There Is Only One Thing About Which I Am Certain, And This Is That There Is Very Little About Which One Can Be Certain

I Think I Was A Little Disappointed In Her. I Expected Then People To Be More Of A Piece Than I Do Now, And I Was Distressed To Find So Much Vindictiveness In So Charming A Creature. I Did Not Realize How Motley Are The Qualities That Go To Make Up A Human Being. Now I Am Well Aware That Pettiness And Grandeur, Malice And Charity, Hatred And Love, Can Find Place Side By Side In The Same Human Heart.

The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

The Fact That A Great Many People Believe Something Is No Guarantee Of Its Truth.

When Things Are At Their Worst, I Find Something Always Happens.

If Only The Good Were A Little Less Heavy-footed

We Are Like People Living In A Country Whose Language They Know So Little That, With All Manner Of Beautiful And Profound Things To Say, They Are Condemned To The Banalities Of The Conversation Manual. Their Brain Is Seething With Ideas, And They Can Only Tell You That The Umbrella Of The Gardener's Aunt Is In The House.

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