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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.

-W. Somerset Maugham

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The Complete Life, The

W. Somerset Maugham

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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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

For Men, As A Rule, Love Is But An Episode Which Takes Place Among The Other Affairs Of The Day, And The Emphasis Laid On It In Novels Gives It An Importance Which Is Untrue To Life. There Are Few Men To Whom It Is The Most Important Thing In The World, And They Are Not The Very Interesting Ones; Even Women, With Whom The Subject Is Of Paramount Interest, Have A Contempt For Them.

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.

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

Tolerance Is Another Word For Indifference.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

He Did Not Care If She Was Heartless, Vicious And Vulgar, Stupid And Grasping, He Loved Her. He Would Rather Have Misery With One Than Happiness With The Other.

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

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

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

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

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!"

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

The Ability To Quote Is A Serviceable Substitute For Wit.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Reverie Is The Groundwork Of Creative Imagination; It Is The Privilege Of The Artist That With Him It Is Not As With Other Men An Escape From Reality, But The Means By Which He Accedes To It.

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

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

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

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.

And He Loved Her Suddenly Because She Loved Him.

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

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]

A Writer Need Not Devour A Whole Sheep In Order To Know What Mutton Tastes Like, But He Must At Least Eat A Chop. Unless He Gets His Facts Right, His Imagination Will Lead Him Into All Kinds Of Nonsense, And The Facts He Is Most Likely To Get Right Are The Facts Of His Own Experience.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Tragedy Of Love Is Indifference.

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

Imagination Grows By Exercise.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

At A Dinner Party One Should Eat Wisely But Not Too Well, And Talk Well But Not Too Wisely.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

No Action Is In Itself Good Or Bad, But Only Such According To Convention.

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

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.

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.

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

Love Is Only A Dirty Trick Played On Us To Achieve Continuation Of The Species.

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

It Is Pleasure That Lurks In The Practice Of Every One Of Your Virtues. Man Performs Actions Because They Are Good For Him, And When They Are Good For Other People As Well They Are Thought Virtuous: If He Finds Pleasure In Helping Others He Is Benevolent; If He Finds Pleasure In Working For Society He Is Public-spirited; But It Is For Your Private Pleasure That You Give Twopence To A Beggar As Much As It Is For My Private Pleasure That I Drink Another Whiskey And Soda. I, Less Of A Humbug Than You, Neither Applaud Myself For My Pleasure Nor Demand Your Admiration.

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.

The Highest Activities Of Consciousness Have Their Origins In Physical Occurrences Of The Brain, Just As The Loveliest Melodies Are Not Too Sublime To Be Expressed By Notes.

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.

Affection Is Created By Habit, Community Of Interests, Convenience And The Desire Of Companionship. It Is A Comfort Rather Than An Exhilaration.

Life Isn't Long Enough For Love And Art.

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

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.

There Are Times When I Look Over The Various Parts Of My Character With Perplexity. I Recognize That I Am Made Up Of Several Persons And That The Person That At The Moment Has The Upper Hand Will Inevitably Give Place To Another. But Which Is The Real One? All Of Them Or None?

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

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

The Crown Of Literature Is Poetry. It Is Its End And Aim. It Is The Sublimest Activity Of The Human Mind. It Is The Achievement Of Beauty And Delicacy. The Writer Of Prose Can Only Step Aside When The Poet Passes.

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

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

It Seems That The Creative Faculty And The Critical Faculty Cannot Exist Together In Their Highest Perfection.

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

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.

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

Excess On Occasion Is Exhilarating. It Prevents Moderation From Acquiring The Deadening Effect Of A Habit. It's A Funny Thing About Life; If You Refuse To Accept Anything But The Best, You Very Often Get It. Like All Weak Men He Laid An Exaggerated Stress On Not Changing One's Mind.

I Don't Think Of The Past. The Only Thing That Matters Is The Everlasting Present.

You Can Never Know Enough About Your Characters

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

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.

Loving-kindness Is The Better Part Of Goodness.

Loving Kindness

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

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

We Do Not Write As We Want, But As We Can.

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

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

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

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.

In Civilized Communities Men's Idiosyncrasies Are Mitigated By The Necessity Of Conforming To Certain Rules Of Behavior. Culture Is A Mask That Hides Their Faces.

No Affectation Of Peculiarity Can Conceal A Commonplace Mind.

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

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

Only Mediocre People Are At The Best All The Time.

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.

The Mathematician Who After Seeing Phedre Asked: 'qu'est Que Ca Prouve?' Was Not Such A Fool As He Has Been Generally Made Out. No One Has Ever Been Able To Explain Why The Doric Temple Of Paestum Is More Beautiful Than A Glass Of Cold Beer Except By Bringing In Considerations That Have Nothing To Do With Beauty.

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

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.

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.

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. The Pictures They Paint, The Music They Compose, The Books They Write, And The Lives They Lead. Of All These The Richest In Beauty Is The Beautiful Life. That Is The Perfect Work Of Art.

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.

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.

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

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

It Is One Of The Defects Of My Character That I Cannot Altogether Dislike Anyone Who Makes Me Laugh.

He Found That It Was Easy To Make A Heroic Gesture, But Hard To Abide By Its Results.

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 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.

I Wonder How Anyone Can Have The Face To Condemn Others When He Reflects Upon His Own Thoughts.

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.

If You'd Ever Had A Grown-up Daughter You'd Know That By Comparison A Bucking Steer Is Easy To Manage. And As To Knowing What Goes On Inside Her - Well, It's Much Better To Pretend You're The Simple, Innocent Old Fool She Almost Certainly Takes You For.

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

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.

She Alone Had Been Blind To His Merit. Why? Because He Loved Her And She Did Not Love Him. What Was It In The Human Heart That Made You Despise A Man Because He Loved You?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Is Unfair To Expect A Politician To Live In Private Up To The Statements He Makes In Public.

People Ask For Criticism, But They Only Want Praise.

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

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.

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

The Essential Element Of Love Is A Belief In Its Own Eternity.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy It While It Lasts

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

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

Genius Is Talent Provided With Ideals.

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.

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

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

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.

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

With The Superciliousness Of Extreme Youth, I Put Thirty-five As The Utmost Limit At Which A Man Might Fall In Love Without Making A Fool Of Himself.

Falling In Love

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

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