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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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Some People Read For

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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All Important Persons Have About Them Someone In A Subordinate Position Who Has Their Ear. These Dependents Are Very Susceptible To Slights, And, When They Are Not Treated As They Think They Should Be, Will By Well-directed Shafts, Constantly Repeated, Poison The Minds Of Their Patrons Against Those Who Have Provoked Their Animosity. It Is Well To Keep In With Them.

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

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 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.

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

Genius Is Talent Provided With Ideals.

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

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

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.

Simplicity And Naturalness Are The Truest Marks Of Distinction.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I Knew That Suffering Did Not Enoble; It Degraded. It Made Men Selfish, Petty And Suspicious. It Absorbed Them In Small Things...it Made Them Less Than Men; And I Wrote Ferociously That We Learn Resignation Not By Our Own Suffering, But By The Suffering Of Others.

Suffering Of Others

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.

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.

To Write Simply Is As Difficult As To Be Good.

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.

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.

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

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.

Perfect Is Determined In Shortened Measures Of Time, Not Over Long Periods Of Time Or Lifetimes. It Would Be Unnatural.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ability To Quote Is A Serviceable Substitute For Wit.

People Who Ask For Your Criticism Want Only Praise.

Life Isn't Long Enough For Love And Art.

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.

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

I Am Told That Today Rather More Than 60 Per Cent Of The Men Who Go To The Universities Go On A Government Grant. This Is A New Class That Has Entered Upon The Scene ... They Are Scum.

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

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

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

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

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.

The Complete Life, The Perfect Pattern, Includes Old Age As Well As Youth And Maturity. The Beauty Of The Morning And The Radiance Of Noon Are Good, But It Would Be A Very Silly Person Who Drew The Curtains And Turned On The Light In Order To Shut Out The Tranquillity Of The Evening. Old Age Has Its Pleasures, Which, Though Different, Are Not Less Than The Pleasures Of Youth.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The Well Dressed Man Is He Whose Clothes You Never Notice

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

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.

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness.

Loving Kindness

From Old Habit, Unconsciously He Thanked God That He No Longer Believed In Him.

Imagination Grows By Exercise.

Impropriety Is The Soul Of Wit.

Of All The Hokum With Which This Country [america] Is Riddled, The Most Odd Is The Common Notion That It Is Free Of Class Distinctions.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Tradition Is A Guide And Not A Jailer.

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.

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

A Man Marries To Have A Home, But Also Because He Doesn't Want To Be Bothered With Sex And All That Sort Of Thing.

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

An Unfortunate Thing About This World Is That The Good Habits Are Much Easier To Give Up Than The Bad Ones.

Unfortunate Things

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.

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.

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

Thought Provoking

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

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.

People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

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

We Didn't Think Much In The Air Corps Of A Fellow Who Wangled A Cushy Job Out Of His C.o. By Buttering Him Up. It Was Hard For Me To Believe That God Thought Much Of A Man Who Tried To Wangle Salvation By Fulsome Flattery. I Should Have Thought The Worship Most Pleasing To Him Was To Do Your Best According To Your Lights.

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.

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

The Secret Of Play-writing Can Be Given In Two Maxims: Stick To The Point, And, Whenever You Can, Cut.

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

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

The Dead Look So Terribly Dead When They're Dead.

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

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

The Most Valuable Thing I Have Learned From Life Is To Regret Nothing.

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

I Daresay One Profits More By The Mistakes One Makes Off One's Own Bat Than By Doing The Right Thing On Somebody's Else Advice.

Sherry, The Civilized Drink.

...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.

It Has Been Said That Metaphysics Is The Finding Of Bad Reasons For What We Believe Upon Instinct.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

It Is Not True That Suffering Ennobles The Character; Happiness Does That Sometimes, But Suffering For The Most Part, Makes Men Petty And Vindictive.

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

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

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.

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

I Thought It Was Only In Revealed Religion That A Mistranslation Improved The Sense.

Great Writers Create; Writers Of Smaller Gifts Copy

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

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]

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Humorist Has A Good Eye For The Humbug; He Does Not Always Recognize The Saint.

Nothing More Predisposes Someone In Our Favour Than To Let Him Rob You A Little.

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

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

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.

A Good Rule For Writers: Do Not Explain Overmuch.

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.

Dullness Is The First Requisite Of A Good Husband.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

It Is Not Wealth One Asks For, But Just Enough To Preserve One's Dignity, To Work Unhampered, To Be Generous, Frank And Independent.

Dignity Of Work

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

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

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.

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

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.

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!"

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.

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

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

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

A Unitarian Very Earnestly Disbelieves What Everyone Else Believes.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

Old Age Is Ready To Undertake Tasks That Youth Shirked Because They Would Take Too Long.

The Great Trues Are Too Important To Be New.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Have Common Sense And Stick To The Point.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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