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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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He Knew That All

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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The Officers Saluted As She Passed And Gravely Bowed. They Walked Back Across The Courtyard And Got Into Their Chairs. She Saw Waddington Light A Cigarette. A Little Smoke Lost In The Air, That Was The Life Of A Man.

A Writer Need Not Devour A Whole Sheep In Order To Know What Mutton Tastes Like, But He Must At Least Eat A Chop. Unless He Gets His Facts Right, His Imagination Will Lead Him Into All Kinds Of Nonsense, And The Facts He Is Most Likely To Get Right Are The Facts Of His Own Experience.

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.

If You'd Ever Had A Grown-up Daughter You'd Know That By Comparison A Bucking Steer Is Easy To Manage. And As To Knowing What Goes On Inside Her - Well, It's Much Better To Pretend You're The Simple, Innocent Old Fool She Almost Certainly Takes You For.

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.

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

The Nature Of Men And Women - Their Essential Nature - Is So Vile And Despicable That If You Were To Portray A Person As He Really Is, No One Would Believe You.

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

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.

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

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

A Dictator Must Fool All The People All The Time And There's Only One Way To Do That, He Must Also Fool Himself.

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

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

By The Time A Man Notices That He Is No Longer Young, His Youth Has Long Since Left Him.

The Only Important Thing In A Book Is The Meaning That It Has For You.

Women Are Constantly Trying To Commit Suicide For Love, But Generally They Take Care Not To Succeed.

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.

Imagination Grows By Exercise, And Contrary To Common Belief, Is More Powerful In The Mature Than In The Young.

Art, If It Is To Be Reckoned As One Of The Great Values Of Life, Must Teach Man Humility, Tolerance, Wisdom And Magnanimity. The Value Of Art Is Not Beauty, But Right Action.

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

Well, You Know When People Are No Good At Anything Else They Become Writers.

The Essential Element Of Love Is A Belief In Its Own Eternity.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

She Alone Had Been Blind To His Merit. Why? Because He Loved Her And She Did Not Love Him. What Was It In The Human Heart That Made You Despise A Man Because He Loved You?

Are You Sure You Can Prevent Yourself From Falling In Love One Of These Days? Such Things Do Happen, You Know, Even To The Most Prudent Men.' Simon Gave Him A Strange, One Might Even Have Thought A Hostile, Look. I Should Tear It Out Of My Heart As I'd Wrench Out Of My Mouth A Rotten Tooth.

Falling In Love

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

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

The Essence Of The Beautiful Is Unity In Variety.

You Will Have To Learn Many Tedious Things,...which You Will Forget The Moment You Have Passed Your Final Examination, But In Anatomy It Is Better To Have Learned And Lost Than Never To Have Learned At All.

There Are Two Good Things In Life - Freedom Of Thought And Freedom Of Action.

Do You Know That Conversation Is One Of The Greatest Pleasures In Life? But It Wants Leisure.

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

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

The World In General Doesn't Know What To Make Of Originality; It Is Startled Out Of Its Comfortable Habits Of Thought, And Its First Reaction Is One Of Anger.

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.

You Can Never Know Enough About Your Characters

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

I Now, Weak, Old, Diseased, Poor, Dying, Hold Still My Soul In My Hands, And I Regret Nothing.

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

In Religion Above All Things The Only Thing Of Use Is An Objective Truth. The Only God That Is Of Use Is A Being Who Is Personal, Supreme And Good, And Whose Existence Is As Certain As That Two And Two Make Four.

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

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.

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.

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

If A Nation Values Anything More Than Freedom, It Will Lose Its Freedom; And The Irony Of It Is That If It Is Comfort Or Money That It Values More, It Will Lose That Too.

Libertarian Party

Sherry, The Civilized Drink.

It Is Good To Be On Your Guard Against An Englishman Who Speaks French Perfectly; He Is Very Likely To Be A Card-sharper Or An Attache In The Diplomatic Service.

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

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.

I Don't Think Of The Past. The Only Thing That Matters Is The Everlasting Present.

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.

Her Tears Were Partly Tears Of Happiness, For She Felt That The Strangeness Between Them Was Gone. She Loved Him Now With A New Love Because He Had Made Her Suffer.

The Author Always Loads His Dice, But He Must Never Let The Reader See That He Has Done So, And By The Manipulation Of His Plot, He Can Engage The Reader's Attention So That He Does Not Perceive The Violence That Has Been Done To Him.

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.

No Egoism Is So Insufferable As That Of The Christian With Regard To His Soul.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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It Is Not For Nothing That Artists Have Called Their Works The Children Of Their Brains And Likened The Pains Of Production To The Pains Of Childbirth.

The Writer Of Prose Can Only Step Aside When The Poet Passes...

Life Is Really Very Fantastic, And One Has To Have A Peculiar Sense Of Humour To See The Fun Of It. [virtue]

Because A Man Can Write Great Works He Is None The Less A Man.

It's Asking A Great Deal That Things Should Appeal To Your Reason As Well As Your Sense Of The Aesthetic. - Of Human Bondage

The Audience Is Not The Least Important Actor In The Play And If It Will Not Do Its Allotted Share The Play Falls To Pieces.

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

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

Everyone Had Some Defect, Or Body Or Of Mind: He Thought Of All The People He Had Known (the Whole World Was Like A Sick House And There Was No Rhyme Or Reason In It), He Saw A Long Procession, Deformed In Body, Warped In Mind, Some With Illness Of The Flesh, Weak Hearts Or Weak Lungs, And Some With Illness Of The Spirit, Languor Of Will, Or Craving For Liquor. At That Moment He Felt A Holy Compassion For Them All. …the Words Of The Dying God Crossed His Memory: Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do.

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

To Write Simply Is As Difficult As To Be Good.

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

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.

We Who Are Of Mature Age Seldom Suspect How Unmercifully And Yet With What Insight The Very Young Judge Us.

Man Has Always Sacrificed Truth To His Vanity, Comfort And Advantage. He Lives Not By Truth But By Make-believe.

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

Has It Occurred To You That Transmigration Is At Once An Explanation And A Justification Of The Evil Of The World? If The Evils We Suffer Are The Result Of Sins Committed In Our Past Lives, We Can Bear Them With Resignation And Hope That If In This One We Strive Toward Virtue Out Future Lives Will Be Less Afflicted.

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

Men Seek But One Thing In Life - Their Pleasure.

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

Look After Your Laundry, And Your Soul Will Look After Itself.

Thought Provoking

It Is A Nuisance That Knowledge Can Only Be Acquired By Hard Work.

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 Normal Is What You Find But Rarely. The Normal Is An Ideal. It Is A Picture That One Fabricates Of The Average Characteristics Of Men, And To Find Them All In A Single Man Is Hardly To Be Expected.

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

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.

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 Ideals Which Have Been Instilled In Them, And Each Time They Come Into Contact With The Real, They Are Bruised And Wounded.

Death Is A Very Dull, Dreary Affair, And My Advice To You Is To Have Nothing Whatsoever To Do With It.

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

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.

You Know, There Are Two Good Things In Life, Freedom Of Thought And Freedom Of Action. In France You Get Freedom Of Action: You Can Do What You Like And Nobody Bothers, But You Must Think Like Everybody Else. In Germany You Must Do What Everybody Else Does, But You May Think As You Choose. They're Both Very Good Things. I Personally Prefer Freedom Of Thought. But In England You Get Neither: You're Ground Down By Convention. You Can't Think As You Like And You Can't Act As You Like. That's Because It's A Democratic Nation. I Expect America's Worse.

Love Is Only A Dirty Trick Played On Us To Achieve Continuation Of The Species.

As We Grow Older We Become More Conscious Of The Complexity, Incoherence, And Unreasonableness Of Human Beings; This Indeed Is The Only Excuse That Offers For The Middle-aged Or Elderly Writer Whose Thoughts Should More Properly Be Turned To Graver Matters, Occupying Himself With The Trivial Concerns Of Imaginary People.

Occupy Yourself

The Average American Can Get Into The Kingdom Of Heaven Much More Easily Than He Can Get Into The Boulevard St. Germain.

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

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.

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

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

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

By The Time An Actor Knows How To Act Any Sort Of Part He Is Often Too Old To Act Any But A Few.

Thank God, I Can Look At A Sunset Now Without Having To Think How To Describe It

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.

There Are Times When I Look Over The Various Parts Of My Character With Perplexity. I Recognize That I Am Made Up Of Several Persons And That The Person That At The Moment Has The Upper Hand Will Inevitably Give Place To Another. But Which Is The Real One? All Of Them Or None?

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

I Did Not Believe Him Capable Of Love. That Is An Emotion In Which Tenderness Is An Essential Part, But Strickland Had No Tenderness Either For Himself Or For Others; There Is In Love A Sense Of Weakness, A Desire To Protect, An Eagerness To Do Good And To Give Pleasure--if Not Unselfishness, At All Events A Selfishness Which Marvellously Conceals Itself; It Has In It A Certain Diffidence.

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.

Art Should Be Appreciated With Passion And Violence, Not With A Tepid, Depreciating Elegance That Fears The Censoriousness Of A Common Room.

No One Can Write A Best Seller By Trying To. He Must Write With Complete Sincerity; The Clichés That Make You Laugh, The Hackneyed Characters, The Well-worn Situations, The Commonplace Story That Excites Your Derision, Seem Neither Hackneyed, Well Worn Nor Commonplace To Him. ... The Conclusion Is Obvious: You Cannot Write Anything That Will Convince Unless You Are Yourself Convinced. The Best Seller Sells Because He Writes With His Heart's Blood.

Make Him Laugh And He Will Think You A Trivial Fellow, But Bore Him In The Right Way And Your Reputation Is Assured.

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.

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.

To Bear Failure With Courage Is The Best Proof Of Character That Anyone Can Give... You Will Find That People Forget The Failures Of Others Very Quickly.... My Last Piece Of Advice Is Not To Let Anyone See Your Mortification, But Whatever You Fancy People Are Saying About You To Go On With Your Ordinary Life As Though Nothing Unpleasant Had Happened To You.

The Life Force Is Vigorous. The Delight That Accompanies It Counter-balances All The Pains And Hardships That Confront Men. It Makes Life Worth Living.

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

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.

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

Our Wise Old Church...has Discovered That If You Will Act As If You Believed Belief Will Be Given To You; If You Pray With Doubt, But Pray With Sincerity, Your Doubt Will Be Dispelled; If You Will Surrender Yourself To The Beauty Of That Liturgy The Power Of Which Over The Human Spirit Has Been Proved By The Experience Of The Ages, Peace Will Descend Upon You.

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.

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

Tolerance Is Only Another Name For Indifference.

The Ideas For Stories That Thronged My Brain Would Not Let Me Rest Till I Had Got Rid Of Them By Writing Them.

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.

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

He Is Not Famous. It May Be That He Never Will Be. It May Be That When His Life At Last Comes To An End He Will Leave No More Trace Of His Sojourn On Earth Than A Stone Thrown Into A River Leaves On The Surface Of The Water. But It May Be That The Way Of Life That He Has Chosen For Himself And The Peculiar Strength And Sweetness Of His Character May Have An Ever-growing Influence Over His Fellow Men So That, Long After His Death Perhaps, It May Be Realized That There Lived In This Age A Very Remarkable Creature.

The Spirit Is Often Most Free When The Body Is Satiated With Pleasure; Indeed, Sometimes The Stars Shine More Brightly Seen From The Gutter Than From The Hilltop.

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

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

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

We Do Not Write As We Want, But As We Can.

It Has Amazed Me That The Most Incongruous Traits Should Exist In The Same Person And, For All That, Yield A Plausible Harmony.

You Can Do Anything In This World If You Are Prepared To Take The Consequences.

Positive Thinking

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

People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

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

The Artist Can Within Limits Make What He Likes Of His Life... It Is Only The Artist, And Maybe The Criminal, Who Can Make His Own.

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

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

The Great Critic … Must Be A Philosopher, For From Philosophy He Will Learn Serenity, Impartiality, And The Transitoriness Of Human Things.

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.

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.

A Woman May Be As Wicked As She Likes, But If She Isn't Pretty It Won't Do Her Much Good.

Life Is So Largely Controlled By Chance That Its Conduct Can Be But A Perpetual Improvisation.

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.

It Is Pleasure That Lurks In The Practice Of Every One Of Your Virtues. Man Performs Actions Because They Are Good For Him, And When They Are Good For Other People As Well They Are Thought Virtuous: If He Finds Pleasure In Helping Others He Is Benevolent; If He Finds Pleasure In Working For Society He Is Public-spirited; But It Is For Your Private Pleasure That You Give Twopence To A Beggar As Much As It Is For My Private Pleasure That I Drink Another Whiskey And Soda. I, Less Of A Humbug Than You, Neither Applaud Myself For My Pleasure Nor Demand Your Admiration.

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 [death] Was Astonished To See Him In Baghdad, For I Had An Appointment With Him Tonight In Samarra.

The Well Dressed Man Is He Whose Clothes You Never Notice

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.

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

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

We Americans... Like Change. It Is At Once Our Weakness And Our Strength.

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.

Now It Is A Funny Thing About Life. If You Refuse To Accept Anything But The Best, You Very Often Get It. If You Utterly Decline To Make Do With What You Can Get, Then Somehow Or Other, You Are Very Likely To Get What You Want.

She Says It's Really Not Very Flattering To Her That The Women Who Fall In Love With Her Husband Are So Uncommonly Second-rate.

Falling In Love

A God That Can Be Understood Is No God. Who Can Explain The Infinite In Words?

When I Was Young I Had An Elderly Friend Who Used Often To Ask Me To Stay With Him In The Country. He Was A Religious Man And He Read Prayers To The Assembled Household Every Morning. But He Had Crossed Out In Pencil All The Passages That Praised God. He Said That There Was Nothing So Vulgar As To Praise People To Their Faces And, Himself A Gentleman, He Could Not Believe That God Was So Ungentlemanly As To Like It.

You Know, The Philistines Have Long Since Discarded The Rack And Stake As A Means Of Suppressing The Opinions They Feared: They've Discovered A Much More Deadly Weapon Of Destruction -- The Wisecrack.

Sometimes The Road Was Only A Lane, With Thick Hawthorne Hedges, And The Green Elms Overhung It On Either Side So That When You Looked Up There Was Only A Strip Of Blue Sky Between. And As You Rode Along In The Warm, Keen Air You Had A Sensation That The World Was Standing Still And Life Would Last Forever. Although You Were Pedaling With Such Energy You Had A Delicious Feeling Of Laziness.

You See, Money To You Means Freedom; To Me It Means Bondage.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

A Bird In The Hand Was Worth Two In The Bush, He Told Her, To Which She Retorted That A Proverb Was The Last Refuge Of The Mentally Destitute.

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.

On The Earth, Satellite Of A Star Speeding Through Space, Living Things Had Arisen Under The Influence Of Conditions Which Were Part Of The Planet's History; And As There Had Been A Beginning Of Life Upon It, So, Under The Influence Of Other Conditions, There Would Be An End: Man, No More Significant Than Other Forms Of Life, Had Come Not As The Climax Of Creation But As A Physical Reaction To The Environment.

If You Don't Change Your Beliefs, Your Life Will Be Like This Forever. Is That Good News?

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

Why Should You Think That Beauty, Which Is The Most Precious Thing In The World, Lies Like A Stone On The Beach For The Careless Passer-by To Pick Up Idly? Beauty Is Something Wonderful And Strange That The Artist Fashions Out Of The Chaos Of The World In The Torment Of His Soul. And When He Has Made It, It Is Not Given To All To Know It. To Recognize It You Must Repeat The Adventure Of The Artist. It Is A Melody That He Sings To You, And To Hear It Again In Your Own Heart You Want Knowledge And Sensitiveness And Imagination.

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.

Women Are Strange Little Beasts,' He Said To Dr. Coutras. 'you Can Treat Them Like Dogs, You Can Beat Them Till Your Arm Aches, And Still They Love You.' He Shrugged His Shoulders. 'of Course, It Is One Of The Most Absurd Illusions Of Christianity That They Have Souls.

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

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

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

To Acquire The Habit Of Reading Is To Construct For Yourself A Refuge From Almost All The Miseries Of Life.

You've Been Brought Up Like A Gentleman And A Christian, And I Should Be False To The Trust Laid Upon Me By Your Dead Father And Mother If I Allowed You To Expose Yourself To Such Temptation.' Well, I Know I'm Not A Christian And I'm Beginning To Doubt Whether I'm A Gentleman,' Said Philip.

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

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

I Never Met An Author Who Admitted That People Did Not Buy His Book Because It Was Dull.

Tolerance Is Another Word For Indifference.

What Mean And Cruel Things Men Can Do For The Love Of God.

A Novelist Must Preserve A Childlike Belief In The Importance Of Things Which Common Sense Considers Of No Great Consequence.

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.

She Loved Three Things — A Joke, A Glass Of Wine, And A Handsome Man.

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

It Might Be That To Surrender To Happiness Was To Accept Defeat, But It Was A Defeat Better Than Many Victories.

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