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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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In Religion Above All

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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More From W. Somerset Maugham

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

Positive Thinking

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

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?

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.

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.

Writing Is The Supreme Solace.

Remember That It Is Nothing To Do Your Duty, That Is Demanded Of You And Is No More Meritorious Than To Wash Your Hands When They Are Dirty; The Only Thing That Counts Is The Love Of Duty; When Love And Duty Are One, Then Grace Is In You And You Will Enjoy A Happiness Which Passes All Understanding.

What Makes Old Age Hard To Bear Is Not The Failing Of One's Faculties, Mental And Physical, But The Burden Of One's Memories.

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.

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

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.

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 Day Broke Grey And Dull. The Clouds Hung Heavily, And There Was A Rawness In The Air That Suggested Snow. A Woman Servant Came Into A Room In Which A Child Was Sleeping And Drew The Curtains. She Glanced Mechanically At The House Opposite, A Stucco House With A Portico, And Went To The Child's Bed.

Dying Is The Most Hellishly Boresome Experience In The World! Particularly When It Entails Dying Of 'natural Causes'.

The Well Dressed Man Is He Whose Clothes You Never Notice

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

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.

I Want A Girl Because I Want To Bring Her Up So That She Shan't Make The Mistakes I've Made. When I Look Back Upon The Girl I Was I Hate Myself. But I Never Had A Chance. I'm Going To Bring Up My Daughter So That She's Free And Can Stand On Her Own Feet. I´m Not Going To Bring A Child Into The World, And Love Her, And Bring Her Up, Just So That Some Man May Want To Sleep With Her So Much That He's Willing To Provide Her With Board And Lodging For The Rest Of Her Life.

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

Perhaps It Would Have Been Possible To See In Him A New Prometheus...the Hero Who For The Good Of Mankind Exposes Himself To The Agonies Of The Damned...undaunted By Failure, By An Unceasing Effort Of Courage Holding Despair At Bay, Doggedly Persistent In The Face Of Self-doubt, Which Is The Artist's Bitterest Enemy.

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.

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

There Is Nothing So Degrading As The Constant Anxiety About One's Means Of Livelihood.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

And He Loved Her Suddenly Because She Loved Him.

It's A Funny Thing About Life; If You Refuse To Accept Anything But The Best, You Very Often Get It.

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

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

From The Earliest Time The Old Have Rubbed It Into The Young That They Are Wiser, And Before The Young Had Discovered What Nonsense This Was They Were Old Too, And It Profited Them To Carry On The Imposture.

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

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.

No Author Can Create A Character Out Of Nothing. He Must Have A Model To Give Him A Starting Point; But Then His Imagination Goes To Work, He Builds Him Up, Adding A Trait Here, A Trait There, Which His Model Did Not Possess.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Oh, It's Always The Same,' She Sighed, 'if You Want Men To Behave Well To You, You Must Be Beastly To Them; If You Treat Them Decently They Make You Suffer For It.

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

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.

Anyone Can Tell The Truth, But Only Very Few Of Us Can Make Epigrams.

Telling The Truth

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

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.

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

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

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

Creative Writing

For My Part I Cannot Believe In A God Who Is Angry With Me Because I Do Not Believe In Him. I Cannot Believe In A God Who Is Less Tolerant Than I. I Cannot Believe In A God Who Has Neither Humour Nor Common Sense.

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.

Each One Of Us Is Alone In The World. He Is Shut In A Tower Of Brass, And Can Communicate With His Fellows Only By Signs, And The Signs Have No Common Value, So That Their Sense Is Vague And Uncertain. We Seek Pitifully To Convey To Others The Treasures Of Our Heart, But They Have Not The Power To Accept Them, And So We Go Lonely, Side By Side But Not Together, Unable To Know Our Fellows And Unknown By Them.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

There Are Directors Who Desire To Be Artistic. It Is Pathetic To Compare The Seriousness Of Their Aim With The Absurdity Of Their Attainment.

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

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.

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

When You Are Young You Take The Kindness People Show You As Your Right.

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

There Are Few Things So Pleasant As A Picnic Eaten In Perfect Comfort.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

[money] Is The String With Which A Sardonic Destiny Directs The Motions Of Its Puppets.

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

Great Writers Create; Writers Of Smaller Gifts Copy

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

The Essence Of The Beautiful Is Unity In Variety.

In Hollywood, The Women Are All Peaches. It Makes One Long For An Apple Occasionally.

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

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.

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

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.

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

A Good Rule For Writers: Do Not Explain Overmuch.

You Know What The Critics Are. If You Tell The Truth They Only Say You're Cynical And It Does An Author No Good To Get A Reputation For Cynicism.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

What Do We Any Of Us Have But Our Illusions? And What Do We Ask Of Others But That We Be Allowed To Keep Them?

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

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.

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

If Only The Good Were A Little Less Heavy-footed

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.

To Write Simply Is As Difficult As To Be Good.

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

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

Some American Delusions: 1) That There Is No Class-consciousness In The Country. 2) That American Coffee Is Good. 3) That Americans Are Business-like. 4) That Americans Are Highly-sexed And That Redheads Are More Highly Sexed Than Others.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness.

Loving Kindness

No Affectation Of Peculiarity Can Conceal A Commonplace Mind.

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.

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

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

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

The Great American Novel Has Not Only Already Been Written, It Has Already Been Rejected.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

As The Cosmos Are In Place, So Be It With Your Life.

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.

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

I Have Always Been Convinced That If A Woman Once Made Up Her Mind To Marry A Man, Nothing But Instant Flight Could Save Him.

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.

Men Have An Extraordinarily Erroneous Opinion Of Their Position In Nature; And The Error Is Ineradicable.

It Is Dangerous To Let The Public Behind The Scenes. They Are Easily Disillusioned And Then They Are Angry With You, For It Was The Illusion They Loved.

Behind The Scenes

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

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

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]

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Its A Toss-up When You Decide To Leave The Beaten Track. Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

We Can None Of Us Step Into The Same River Twice, But The River Flows On And The Other River We Step Into Is Cool And Refreshing, Too

You Europeans Know Nothing About America. Because We Amass Large Fortunes You Think We Care For Nothing But Money. We Are Nothing For It; The Moment We Have It We Spend It, Sometimes Well, Sometimes Ill, But We Spend It. Money Is Nothing To Us; It's Merely The Symbol Of Success. We Are The Greatest Idealists In The World; I Happen To Think That 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.

No Man In His Heart Is Quite So Cynical As A Well-bred Woman.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You Know, Of Course, That The Tasmanians, Who Never Committed Adultery, Are Now Extinct.

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

How Can I Be Reasonable? To Me Our Love Was Everything And You Were My Whole Life. It Is Not Very Pleasant To Realize That To You It Was Only An Episode.

I Prefer A Loose Woman To A Selfish One And A Wanton To A Fool.

Habits In Writing As In Life Are Only Useful If They Are Broken As Soon As They Cease To Be Advantageous.

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.

A Unitarian Very Earnestly Disbelieves What Everyone Else Believes.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Write Only When Inspiration Strikes. Fortunately It Strikes Every Morning At Nine O'clock Sharp.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

"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 World Is Hard And Cruel. We Are Here None Knows Why, And We Go None Knows Whither. We Must Be Very Humble. We Must See The Beauty Of Quietness. We Must Go Through Life So Inconspicuously That Fate Does Not Notice Us. And Let Us Seek The Love Of Simple, Ignorant People. Their Ignorance Is Better Than All Our Knowledge. Let Us Be Silent, Content In Our Little Corner, Meek And Gentle Like Them. That Is The Wisdom Of Life.

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