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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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I Knew That Suffering

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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Suffering Of Others

More From W. Somerset Maugham

It Needs A Good Deal Of Philosophy Not To Be Mortified By The Thought Of Persons Who Have Voluntarily Abandoned Everything That For The Most Of Us Makes Life Worth Living And Are Devoid Of Envy Of What They Have Missed. I Have Never Made Up My Mind Whether They Are Fools Or Wise Men.

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

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.

Women's Hearts Are Like Old China, None The Worse For A Break Or Two.

When A Man's In Love, He At Once Makes A Pedestal Of The Ten Commandments And Stands On The Top Of Them With His Arms Akimbo. When A Woman's In Love She Doesn't Care Two Straws For Thou Shalt And Thou Shalt Not.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Rain Fell Alike Upon The Just And Upon The Unjust, And For Nothing Was There A Why And A Wherefore.

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.

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.

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

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

Creative Writing

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.

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.

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

What Was It In The Human Heart That Made You Despise A Man Because He Loved You?

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

Tradition Is A Guide And Not A Jailer.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

I Happen To Think We’ve Set Our Ideal On The Wrong Objects; I Happen To Think That The Greatest Ideal Man Can Set Before Himself Is Self-perfection.

Tolerance Is Only Another Name For Indifference.

One Cannot Find Peace In Work Or In Pleasure, In The World Or In A Convent, But Only In One's Soul.

I Wish I Could Make You See How Much Fuller The Life I Offer You Is Than Anything You Have A Conception Of. I Wish I Could Make You See How Exciting The Life Of The Spirit Is And How Rich In Experience. It's Illimitable. It's Such A Happy Life. There's Only One Thing Like It, When You're Up In A Plane By Yourself, High, High, And Only Infinity Surrounds You. You're Intoxicated By The Boundless Space.

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

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

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.

To Bear Failure With Courage Is The Best Proof Of Character That Anyone Can Give.

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

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.

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.

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.

Writing Is A Wholetime Job: No Professional Writer Can Afford Only To Write When He Feels Like It.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Can Imagine No More Comfortable Frame Of Mind For The Conduct Of Life Than A Humorous Resignation.

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

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

Perfection Is A Trifle Dull. It Is Not The Least Of Life's Ironies That This, Which We All Aim At, Is Better Not Quite Achieved.

The Essence Of The Beautiful Is Unity In Variety.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Success. I Don't Believe It Has Any Effect On Me. For One Thing I Always Expected It.

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

When He Sacrifices Himself Man For A Moment Is Greater Than God, For How Can God, Infinite And Omnipotent, Sacrifice Himself?

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.

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 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.

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.

The Tragedy Of Love Is Not Death Or Separation. How Long Do You Think It Would Have Been Before One Or Other Of Them Ceased To Care? Oh, It Is Dreadfully Bitter To Look At A Woman Whom You Have Loved With All Your Heart And Soul, So That You Felt You Could Not Bear To Let Her Out Of Your Sight, And Realize That You Would Not Mind If You Never Saw Her Again. The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

In Heaven, When The Blessed Use The Telephone They Will Say What They Have To Say And Not A Word Besides.

If Forty Million People Say A Foolish Thing It Does Not Become A Wise One.

It Requires The Feminine Temperament To Repeat The Same Thing Three Times With Unabated Zest.

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

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

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.

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.

A Unitarian Very Earnestly Disbelieves What Everyone Else Believes.

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

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.

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.

Nothing In The World Is Permanent, And We’re Foolish When We Ask Anything To Last, But Surely We’re Still More Foolish Not To Take Delight In It While We Have It.

Enjoy It While It Lasts

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

Conscience Is The Guardian In The Individual Of The Rules Which The Community Has Evolved For Its Own Preservation.

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

Passing Moments

An Author Spends Months Writing A Book, And Maybe Puts His Heart's Blood Into It, And Then It Lies About Unread Till The Reader Has Nothing Else In The World To Do.

Never Pause Unless You Have A Reason For It, But When You Pause, Pause As Long As You Can.

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

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.

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.

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

I Would Sooner Read A Timetable Or A Catalog Than Nothing At All.

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

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

I Know That You're Selfish, Selfish Beyond Words, And I Know That You Haven't The Nerve Of A Rabbit, I Know You're A Liar And A Humbug, I Know That You're Utterly Contemptible. And The Tragic Part Is'--her Face Was On A Sudden Distraught With Pain--'the Tragic Part Is That Notwithstanding I Love You With All My Heart.

People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

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

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

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

People Are Always A Little Disconcerted When You Don't Recognize Them, They Are So Important To Themselves, It Is A Shock To Discover Of What Small Importance They Are To Others. [the Human Element]

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

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.

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

Impropriety Is The Soul Of Wit.

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.

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.

It Must Be That To Govern A Nation You Need A Specific Talent And That This May Very Well Exist Without General Ability.

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

I Was A Stray Acquaintance Whom He Had Never Seem Before And Would Never See Again, A Wandered For A Moment Through His Monotonous Life, And Some Starved Impulse Left Him To Lay Bare His Soul. I Have In This Way Learned More About Men In A Night Than I Could If I Had Known Them For 10 Years. If You Are Interested In Human Nature, It Is One Of The Greatest Pleasures Of Travel.

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

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

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

A Man Filled With Meat Turns His Back On The Dry Bones Of Political Doctrine. Fanatical Devotion To The Ruling Party Comes More Readily From The Materially Deprived At A Dinner Party One Should Eat Wisely But Not Too Well, And Talk Well But Not Too Wisely.

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.

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

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.

It Is Salutary To Train Oneself To Be No More Affected By Censure Than By Praise.

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.

We Know Our Friends By Their Defects Rather Than By Their Merits.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

We Find Things Beautiful Because We Recognize Them And Contrariwise We Find Things Beautiful Because Their Novelty Surprises Us.

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

There Is A Sort Of Man Who Pays No Attention To His Good Actions, But Is Tormented By His Bad Ones. This Is The Type That Most Often Writes About Himself.

Hypocrisy Is The Most Difficult And Nerve-racking Vice That Any Man Can Pursue; It Needs An Unceasing Vigilance And A Rare Detachment Of Spirit. It Cannot, Like Adultery Or Gluttony, Be Practiced At Spare Moments; It Is A Whole-time Job.

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

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.

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.

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

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

It Is Cruel To Discover One's Mediocrity Only When It Is Too Late. It Does Not Improve The Temper.

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

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

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

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

Truth Is Not Only Stranger Than Fiction, It Is More Telling. To Know That A Thing Actually Happened Gives It A Poignancy, Touches A Chord, Which A Piece Of Acknowledged Fiction Misses. It Is To Touch This Chord That Some Authors Have Done Everything They Could To Give You The Impression That They Are Telling The Plain Truth.

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

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

An Art Is Only Great And Significant If It Is One That All May Enjoy. The Art Of A Clique Is But A Plaything.

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

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

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.

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 Good Traveler Has The Gift Of Surprise.

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

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

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry.

Writing Is The Supreme Solace.

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.

She’s Wonderful. Tell Her I’ve Never Seen Such Beautiful Hands. I Wonder What She Sees In You.” Waddington, Smiling, Translated The Question. “she Says I’m Good.” “as If A Woman Ever Loved A Man For His Virtue,” Kitty Mocked.

It Wasn't Until Late In Life That I Discovered How Easy It Is To Say, 'i Don't Know.'

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

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

There Was An Immeasurable Distance Between The Quick And The Dead: They Did Not Seem To Belong To The Same Species; And It Was Strange To Think That But A Little While Before They Had Spoken And Moved And Eaten And Laughed.

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.

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.

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

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

It Is Well Known That Beauty Does Not Look With A Good Grace On The Timid Advances Of Humour.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness. It Lends Grace To The Sterner Qualities Of Which This Consists.

I Can Only Guess That It Made The World He Went Back To...strangely Without Meaning. Though He Lived In It, Though He Even Enjoyed It, It Remained Utterly Remote. I Think It Had Lost Sense For Him. In His Heart Was The Reflection Of A Lovely Dream That He Could Never Quite Recall.

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

If Only The Good Were A Little Less Heavy-footed

We Do Not Write Because We Want To; We Write Because We Have To.

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.

It Was Like Making A Blunder At A Party; There Was Nothing To Do About It, It Was Dreadfully Mortifying, But It Showed A Lack Of Sense To Ascribe Too Much Importance To It.

The Artist Produces For The Liberation Of His Soul. It Is His Nature To Create As It Is The Nature Of Water To Run Down The Hill.

Great Writers Create; Writers Of Smaller Gifts Copy

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

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

Genius Is Talent Provided With Ideals.

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

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.

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.

No Married Man's Ever Made Up His Mind Until He's Heard What His Wife Has Got To Say About It.

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

For The Complete Life, The Perfect Pattern Includes Old Age As Well As Youth And Maturity.

The Mystic Sees The Ineffable, And The Psychopathologist The Unspeakable.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Is Nothing So Terrible As The Pursuit Of Art By Those Who Have No Talent.

The Ideal Has Many Names, And Beauty Is But One Of 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.

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