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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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The Ballet. I Saw

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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

Sherry, The Civilized Drink.

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.

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

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

When We Come To Judge Others It Is Not By Ourselves As We Really Are That We Judge Them, But By An Image That We Have Formed Of Ourselves From Which We Have Left Out Everything That Offends Our Vanity Or Would Discredit Us In The Eyes Of The World.

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

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

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

The Well Dressed Man Is He Whose Clothes You Never Notice

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

Creative Writing

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.

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

You 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Passing Moments

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

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

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.

When Some Incident Has Shattered The Career You’ve Mapped Out For Yourself, A Folly, A Crime Or A Misfortune, You Mustn’t Think You’re Down And Out. It May Be A Stroke Of Luck, And When You Look Back Years Later You May Say To Yourself That You Wouldn’t For Anything In The World Exchange The New Life Disaster Has Forced Upon You For The Dull, Humdrum Existence You Would Have Led If Circumstances Hadn’t Intervened.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Evil Can Be Condoned Only If In The Beyond It Is Compensated By Good And God Himself Needs Immortality To Vindicate His Ways To Man.

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.

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

Suffering Of Others

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

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.

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

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness.

Loving Kindness

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I Would Sooner Read A Time-table Or A Catalogue Than Nothing At All. They Are Much More Entertaining Than Half The Novels That Are Written.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Forget Who It Was That Recommended Men For Their Soul's Good To Do Each Day Two Things They Disliked: It Was A Wise Man, And It Is A Precept That I Have Followed Scrupulously; For Every Day I Have Got Up And I Have Gone To Bed.

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

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Behind The Scenes

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Occupy Yourself

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

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

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

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

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I Don't Know Why It Is That The Religious Never Ascribe Common Sense To God.

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

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A Good Rule For Writers: Do Not Explain Overmuch.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Because Women Can Do Nothing Except Love, They've Given It A Ridiculous Importance. They Want To Persuade Us That It's The Whole Of Life. It's An Insignificant Part.

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.

Great Writers Create; Writers Of Smaller Gifts Copy

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

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

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.

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

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

You Cannot Write Well Or Much (and I Venture The Opinion That You Cannot Write Well Unless You Write Much) Unless You Form A Habit.

He Exulted In The Possession Of Himself Once More; He Realized How Much Of The Delight Of The World He Had Lost When He Was Absorbed In That Madness Which They Called Love; He Had Had Enough Of It; He Did Not Want To Be In Love Anymore If Love Was That.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 No Need For The Writer To Eat A Whole Sheep To Be Able To Tell You What Mutton Tastes Like. It Is Enough If He Eats A Cutlet. But He Should Do That.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

A Good Story Is Obviously A Difficult Thing To Invent, But Its Difficulty Is A Poor Reason For Despising It.

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.

The Value Of Money Is That With It We Can Tell Any Man To Go To The Devil. It Is The Sixth Sense Which Enables You To Enjoy The Other Five.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Considering How Foolishly People Act And How Pleasantly They Prattle, Perhaps It Would Be Better For The World If They Talked More And Did Less.

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.

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.

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.

But The Only Important Thing In A Book Is The Meaning It Has For You; It May Have Other And Much More Profound Meanings For The Critic, But At Second-hand They Can Be Of Small Service To You.

There Is No Explanation For Evil. It Must Be Looked Upon As A Necessary Part Of The Order Of The Universe. To Ignore It Is Childish, To Bewail It Senseless.

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

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

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

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.

The End Of Culture Is Right Living

Refecting On The High Divorce Rate In America As Contrasted With England "american Women Expect To Find In Their Husbands A Perfection That English Women Only Hope To Find In Their Butlers

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

The Last Words He Said To Me When I Bade Him Good-night Were: Tell Amy It's No Good Coming After Me. Anyhow, I Shall Change My Hotel, So She Wouldn't Be Able To Find Me.' My Own Impression Is That She's Well Rid Of You,' I Said. My Dear Fellow, I Only Hope You'll Be Able To Make Her See It. But Women Are Very Unintelligent.

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

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.

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.

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.

Clearly Much That Seemed Valid Seemed So Only Because He Had Been Taught It From Earliest Youth.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Know That I Shall Die Struggling For Breath, And I Know That I Shall Be Horribly Afraid. I Know That I Shall Not Be Able To Keep Myself From Regretting Bitterly The Life That Has Brought Me To Such A Pass; But I Disown That Regret. I Now, Weak, Old, Diseased, Poor, Dying, Hold Still My Soul In My Hands, And I Regret Nothing.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Tradition Is A Guide And Not A Jailer.

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

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

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

Tolerance Is Another Word For Indifference.

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.

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

Genius Is Talent Provided With Ideals.

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

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.

So Long As Some Are Strong And Some Are Weak, The Weak Will Be Driven To The Wall.

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

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

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.

One Does Not Really Feel Much Grief At Other People's Sorrows; One Tries, And Puts On A Melancholy Face, Thinking Oneself Brutal For Not Caring More; But One Cannot And It Is Better, For If One Grieved Too Deeply At Other People's Tears, Life Would Be Unendurable; And Every Man Has Sufficient Sorrows Of His Own Without Taking To Heart His Neighbour's.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unfortunate Things

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

The Value Of Culture Is Its Effect On Character. It Avails Nothing Unless It Ennobles And Strengthens That. Its Use Is For Life. Its Aim Is Not Beauty But Goodness.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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G. Gordon Liddy

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