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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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Marco Polo Tells The

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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More From W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

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

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.

Life Isn't Long Enough For Love And Art.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Unfortunately Sometimes One Can't Do What One Thinks Is Right Without Making Someone Else Unhappy.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

A Good Rule For Writers: Do Not Explain Overmuch.

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

Reserve Is An Artificial Quality That Is Developed In Most Of Us But As The Result Of Innumerable Rebuffs.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Thought Provoking

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Suffering Of Others

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

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

She Had A Pretty Gift For Quotation, Which Is A Serviceable Substitute For Wit.

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

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

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

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

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

Comedy Appeals To The Collective Mind Of The Audience And This Grows Fatigued; While Farce Appeals To A More Robust Organ, Their Collective Belly.

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.

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

Have Common Sense And Stick To The Point.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Prestige You Acquire By Being Able To Tell Your Friends That You Know Famous Men Proves Only That You Are Yourself Of Small Account.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

No Affectation Of Peculiarity Can Conceal A Commonplace Mind.

You Learn More Quickly Under The Guidance Of Experienced Teachers. You Waste A Lot Of Time Going Down Blind Alleys If You Have No One To Lead You.

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry.

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.

I've Met So Many People, Often The Scum Of The Earth, And Found Them, You Know, Quite Decent. I Am An Uncomfortable Stranger To Moral Indignation.

Scum Of The Earth

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Good Traveler Has The Gift Of Surprise.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

The Artist Produces For The Liberation Of His Soul.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Only A Mediocre Person Is Always At His Best.

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.

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.

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.

If Only The Good Were A Little Less Heavy-footed

A Woman Can Forgive A Man For The Harm He Does Her...but She Can Never Forgive Him For The Sacrifices He Makes On Her Account.

The 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.

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

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 Couldn't But Surmise That The Devil, Looking At The Cruel Wars That Christianity Has Occasioned, The Persecutions, The Tortures Christian Has Inflicted On Christian, The Unkindness, The Hypocracy, The Intolerance, Must Consider The Balance Sheet With Complacency. And When He Remembers That It Has Laid Upon Mankind The Bitter Burden Of The Sense Of Sin That Has Darkened The Beauty Of The Starry Night And Cast A Baleful Shadow On The Passing Plesures Of A World To Be Enjoyed, He Must Chuckle As He Murmurs: Give The Devil His Due.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Lovers, The Difference Between Men And Women Is That Women Can Love All Day Long, But Men Only At Times.

We Are Not The Same Persons This Year As Last; Nor Are Those We Love. It Is A Happy Chance If We, Changing, Continue To Love A Changed Person.

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

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

The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

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

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.

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.

Tradition Is A Guide And Not A Jailer.

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

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.

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

Impropriety Is The Soul Of Wit.

Men Seek But One Thing In Life - Their Pleasure.

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

There Are Many Foolish People In The World And When A Man In A Rather High Position Puts On No Frills, Slaps Them On The Back, And Tells Them He'll Do Anything In The World For Them, They Are Very Likely To Think Him Clever.

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.

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

Passing Moments

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

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

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

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

When Married People Don't Get On They Can Separate, But If They're Not Married It's Impossible. It's A Tie That Only Death Can Sever.

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Norodom Sihanouk

Louis D. Brandeis

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