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Freedom! That Was The Thought That Sung In Her Heart So That Even Though The Future Was So Dim, It Was Iridescent Like The Mist Over The River Where The Morning Sun Fell Upon It. Freedom! Not Only Freedom From A Bond That Irked, And A Companionship Which Depressed Her; Freedom, Not Only From The Death Which Had Threatened, But Freedom From The Love That Had Degraded Her; Freedom From All Spiritual Ties, The Freedom Of A Disembodied Spirit, And With Freedom, Courage , And A Valiant Unconcern For Whatever Was To Come.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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Freedom! That Was The

W. Somerset Maugham

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Freedom! That Was The Thought That Sung In Her Heart So That Even Though The Future Was So Dim, It Was Iridescent Like The Mist Over The River Where The Morning Sun Fell Upon It. Freedom! Not Only Freedom From A Bond That Irked, And A Companionship Which Depressed Her; Freedom, Not Only From The Death Which Had Threatened, But Freedom From The Love That Had Degraded Her; Freedom From All Spiritual Ties, The Freedom Of A Disembodied Spirit, And With Freedom, Courage , And A Valiant Unconcern For Whatever Was To Come.

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The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry.

It Seems That The Creative Faculty And The Critical Faculty Cannot Exist Together In Their Highest Perfection.

The Trouble With Young Writers Is That They Are All In Their Sixties.

The Future Will One Day Be The Present And Will Seem As Unimportant As The Present Does Now.

In The Conduct Of Life We Make Use Of Deliberation To Justify Ourselves In Doing What We Want To Do.

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I Would Sooner Read A Time-table Or A Catalogue Than Nothing At All. They Are Much More Entertaining Than Half The Novels That Are Written.

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

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Evil Is A Necessary Part Of The Order Of The Universe.

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If Nobody Spoke Unless He Had Something To Say, The Human Race Would Very Soon Lose The Use Of Speech.

It Does The Heart Good To Look At You.

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

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Death Doesn't Affect The Living Because It Has Not Happened Yet. Death Doesn't Concern The Dead Because They Have Ceased To Exist.

It Is Astonishing How Many Books I Find There Is No Need For Me To Read At All.

Of All These The Richest In Beauty Is The Beautiful Life. That Is The Perfect Work Of Art. ~waddington

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He Did Not Care If She Was Heartless, Vicious And Vulgar, Stupid And Grasping, He Loved Her. He Would Rather Have Misery With One Than Happiness With The Other.

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Things Were Easier For The Old Novelists Who Saw People All Of A Piece. Speaking Generally, Their Heroes Were Good Through And Through, Their Villains Wholly Bad.

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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?

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Now The Answer ... Is Plain, But It Is So Unpalatable That Most Men Will Not Face It. There Is No Reason For Life And Life Has No Meaning.

To Write Simply Is As Difficult As To Be Good.

There Was Once A Professor Of Law Who Said To His Students. When You Are Fighting A Case, If You Have Facts On Your Side Hammer Them Into The Jury, And If You Have The Law On Your Side Hammer It Into The Judge. But If You Have Neither The Facts Nor The Law, Asked One Of His Listeners? Then Hammer The Hell Into The Table, Answered The Professor.

There Is No Object To Life. To Nature Nothing Matters But The Continuation Of The Species.

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

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

I Don't Understand Anything. Life Is So Strange. I Feel Like Some One Who's Lived All His Life By A Duck-pond And Suddenly Is Shown The Sea. It Makes Me A Little Breathless, And Yet It Fills Me With Elation. I Don't Want To Die, I Want To Live. I'm Beginning To Feel A New Courage. I Feel Like One Of Those Old Sailors Who Set Sail For Undiscovered Seas And I Think My Soul Hankers For The Unknown.

All The Words I Use In My Stories Can Be Found In The Dictionary-it's Just A Matter Of Arranging Them Into The Right Sentences.

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

He Did Not Care Upon What Terms He Satisfied His Passion. He Had Even A Mad, Melodramatic Idea To Drug Her.

The Moral I Draw Is That The Writer Should Seek His Reward In The Pleasure Of His Work And In Release From The Burden Of Thought; And, Indifferent To Aught Else, Care Nothing For Praise Or Censure, Failure Or Success.

Because Women Can Do Nothing Except Love, They've Given It A Ridiculous Importance. They Want To Persuade Us That It's The Whole Of Life. It's An Insignificant Part.

A Good Havana Is One Of The Best Pleasures That I Know.

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.

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 Drama Is Make-believe. It Does Not Deal With Truth But With Effect.

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

There Is No Cruelty Greater Than A Woman's To A Man Who Loves Her And Whom She Does Not Love; She Has No Kindness Then, No Tolerance Even, She Has Only An Insane Irritation.

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

The Value Of Money Is That With It We Can Tell Any Man To Go To The Devil. It Is The Sixth Sense Which Enables You To Enjoy The Other Five.

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

When I Read A Book I Seem To Read It With My Eyes Only, But Now And Then I Come Across A Passage, Perhaps Only A Phrase, Which Has A Meaning For Me, And It Becomes Part Of Me.

But I Am Not Sure It Would Contain Any Short Stories. For The Short Story Is A Minor Art, And It Must Content Itself With Moving, Exciting And Amusing The Reader. ...i Do Not Think That There Is Any (short Story) That Will Give The Reader That Thrill, That Rapture, That Fruitful Energy Which Great Art Can Produce.

The Great Trues Are Too Important To Be New.

It Must Be A Fault In Me That I Am Not Gravely Shocked At The Sins Of Others Unless They Personally Affect Me.

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

The Great Man Is Too Often All Of A Piece; It Is The Little Man That Is A Bundle Of Contradictory Elements. He Is Inexhaustible. You Never Come To The End Of The Surprises He Has In Store For You.

But Philip Was Impatient With Himself; He Called To Mind His Idea Of The Pattern Of Life: The Unhappiness He Had Suffered Was No More Than Part Of A Decoration Which Was Elaborate And Beautiful; He Told Himself Strenuously That He Must Accept With Gaiety Everything, Dreariness And Excitement, Pleasure And Pain, Because It Added To The Richness Of The Design.

This Love Was A Torment, And He Resented Bitterly The Subjugation In Which It Held Him; He Was A Prisoner And He Longed For Freedom. Sometimes He Awoke In The Morning And Felt Nothing; His Soul Leaped, For He Thought He Was Free; He Loved No Longer; But In A Little While, As He Grew Wide Awake, The Pain Settled In His Heart, And He Knew That He Was Not Cured Yet.

When You're Eighteen Your Emotions Are Violent, But They're Not Durable.

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.

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

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

Life Isn't Long Enough For Love And Art.

Art For Art's Sake Makes No More Sense Than Gin For Gin's Sake.

When We Come To Judge Others It Is Not By Ourselves As We Really Are That We Judge Them, But By An Image That We Have Formed Of Ourselves From Which We Have Left Out Everything That Offends Our Vanity Or Would Discredit Us In The Eyes Of The World.

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.

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

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.

Almost All The People Who’ve Had The Most Effect On Me I Seem To Have Met By Chance, Yet Looking Back It Seems As Though I Couldn’t But Have Met Them.

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.

The World Is Quickly Bored By The Recital Of Misfortune, And Willing Avoids The Sight Of Distress.

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

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

But There Are People Who Take Salt With Their Coffee. They Say It Gives A Tang, A Savour, Which Is Peculiar And Fascinating. In The Same Way There Are Certain Places, Surrounded By A Halo Of Romance, To Which The Inevitable Disillusionment You Experience On Seeing Them Gives A Singular Spice. You Had Expected Something Wholly Beautiful And You Get An Impression Which Is Infinitely More Complicated Than Any That Beauty Can Give You. It Is The Weakness In The Character Of A Great Man Which May Make Him Less Admirable But Certainly More Interesting. Nothing Had Prepared Me For Honolulu.

Our Natural Egoism Leads Us To Judge People By Their Relations To Ourselves. We Want Them To Be Certain Things To Us, And For Us That Is What They Are; Because The Rest Of Them Is No Good To Us, We Ignore It.

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

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

You're Beginning To Dislike Me, Aren't You? Well, Dislike Me. It Doesn't Make Any Difference To Me Now.

He Had Heard People Speak Contemptuously Of Money: He Wondered If They Had Ever Tried To Do Without It.

Insensibly He Formed The Most Delightful Habit In The World, The Habit Of Reading: He Did Not Know That Thus He Was Providing Himself With A Refuge From All The Distress Of Life; He Did Not Know Either That He Was Creating For Himself An Unreal World Which Would Make The Real World Of Every Day A Source Of Bitter Disappointment.

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

The Mathematician Who After Seeing Phedre Asked: 'qu'est Que Ca Prouve?' Was Not Such A Fool As He Has Been Generally Made Out. No One Has Ever Been Able To Explain Why The Doric Temple Of Paestum Is More Beautiful Than A Glass Of Cold Beer Except By Bringing In Considerations That Have Nothing To Do With Beauty.

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

When People Say They Do Not Care What Others Think Of Them, For The Most Part They Deceive Themselves. Generally They Mean Only That They Will Do As They Choose, In The Confidence That No One Will Know Their Vagaries; And At The Utmost Only That They Are Willing To Act Contrary To The Opinion Of The Majority Because They Are Supported By The Approval Of Their Neighbours. It Is Not Difficult To Be Unconventional In The Eyes Of The World When Your Unconventionality Is But The Convention Of Your Set.

The Inclination To Digress Is Human. But The Dramatist Must Avoid It Even More Strenuously Than The Saint Must Avoid Sin, For While Sin May Be Venial, Digression Is Mortal.

The Well Dressed Man Is He Whose Clothes You Never Notice

The Audience Is A Very Curious Animal. It Is Shrewd Rather Than Intelligent. Its Mental Capacity Is Less Than That Of Its Most Intellectual Members.

The Passing Moment Is All We Can Be Sure Of; It Is Only Common Sense To Extract Its Utmost Value From It.

Passing Moments

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

First, Cut Out All The Wisdom, Then Cut Out All The Adjectives.

If People Waited To Know One Another Before They Married, The World Wouldn't Be As Overpopulated As It Is Now.

One Does Not Really Feel Much Grief At Other People's Sorrows; One Tries, And Puts On A Melancholy Face, Thinking Oneself Brutal For Not Caring More; But One Cannot And It Is Better, For If One Grieved Too Deeply At Other People's Tears, Life Would Be Unendurable; And Every Man Has Sufficient Sorrows Of His Own Without Taking To Heart His Neighbour's.

You Are Not Angry With People When You Laugh At Them. Humor Teaches Tolerance.

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