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Tolerance Is Only Another Name For Indifference.
-W. Somerset Maugham
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Tolerance Is Only Another

W. Somerset Maugham
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Tolerance Is Only Another Name For Indifference.

Understanding the Quote: "tolerance is only another name for indifference...."

This quote by W. Somerset Maugham reflects deeply on the theme of names. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Names, Tolerance, Atheism, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how W. Somerset Maugham interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham is celebrated for insightful thoughts on names and tolerance. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Names
Tolerance
Atheism
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Tolerance
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Self
Might
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Blue
Sky
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Perfection
Creative
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Magic
Three
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Time
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Honesty
Practice
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Strange
Despise
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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.
Stars
Shining
Gutters
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.
Christian
Mother
Father
Art, If It Is To Be Reckoned As One Of The Great Values Of Life, Must Teach Man Humility, Tolerance, Wisdom And Magnanimity. The Value Of Art Is Not Beauty, But Right Action.
Art
Humility
Men
People Who Ask For Your Criticism Want Only Praise.
People
Criticism
Want
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.
People
Would Be
World
I Now, Weak, Old, Diseased, Poor, Dying, Hold Still My Soul In My Hands, And I Regret Nothing.
Regret
Hands
Soul
It Takes Two To Make A Love Affair And A Mans Meat Is Too Often A Woman's Poison.
Love
Two
Meat
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.
Writing
He Did Not Care Upon What Terms He Satisfied His Passion. He Had Even A Mad, Melodramatic Idea To Drug Her.
Passion
Ideas
Mad
The Only Important Thing In A Book Is The Meaning That It Has For You.
Education
Book
Reading
People Do Tell A Writer Things That They Don't Tell Others. I Don't Know Why, Unless It Is That Having Read One Or Two Of His Books They Feel On Peculiarly Intimate Terms With Him; Or It May Be That They Dramatize Themselves And, Seeing Themselves As It Were As Characters In A Novel, Are Ready To Be As Open With Him As They Imagine The Characters Of His Invention Are.
Book
Writing
Character
Writing Is A Wholetime Job: No Professional Writer Can Afford Only To Write When He Feels Like It.
Jobs
Writing
Feels
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.
Sex
Men
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.
Life
Pain
Men
The Ideas For Stories That Thronged My Brain Would Not Let Me Rest Till I Had Got Rid Of Them By Writing Them.
Writing
Ideas
Brain
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.
Children
Book
Sleep
It's Always Difficult To Make Conversation With A Drunk, And There's No Denying It, The Sober Are At A Disadvantage With Him.
Drinking
Drunk
Sober
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.
Artist
Atheism
Criminals
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.
Real
Men
Occupy Yourself
So Long As Some Are Strong And Some Are Weak, The Weak Will Be Driven To The Wall.
Strength
Strong
Wall
I Never Met An Author Who Admitted That People Did Not Buy His Book Because It Was Dull.
Book
Reading
People
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.
Inspirational
Life
Believe
Art Is Merely The Refuge Which The Ingenious Have Invented, When They Were Supplied With Food And Women, To Escape The Tediousness Of Life.
Art
Human Bondage
Refuge
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.
Order
Evil
Atheism
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.
Country
Class
America
I Wonder How Anyone Can Have The Face To Condemn Others When He Reflects Upon His Own Thoughts.
Faces
Wonder
Wit
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.
Wise
Philosophy
Men
Excess On Occasion Is Exhilarating. It Prevents Moderation From Acquiring The Deadening Effect Of A Habit.
Inspirational
Life
Excess
A Unitarian Very Earnestly Disbelieves What Everyone Else Believes.
Believe
Religion
Unitarian
If A Nation Values Anything More Than Freedom, It Will Lose Its Freedom; And The Irony Of It Is That If It Is Comfort Or Money That It Values More, It Will Lose That Too.
Freedom
Patriotic
Libertarian Party
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.
Past
Evil
Suffering
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.
Money
Men
Devil
Because A Man Can Write Great Works He Is None The Less A Man.
Writing
Greatness
Men
Vaguely, As When You Are Studying A Foreign Language And Read A Page Which At First You Can Make Nothing Of, Till A Word Or A Sentence Gives You A Clue; And On A Sudden Suspicion, As It Were, Of The Sense Flashes Across Your Troubled Wits, Vaguely She Gained An Inkling Into The Workings Of Walter's Mind. It Was Like A Dark And Ominous Landscape Seen By A Flash Of Lightning And In A Moment Hidden Again By The Night. She Shuddered At What She Saw.
Dark
Night
Giving
It Is One Of The Defects Of My Character That I Cannot Altogether Dislike Anyone Who Makes Me Laugh.
Character
Laughing
Make Me Laugh
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.
Hate
People
Treasure
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.
Writing
Sound
Looks
The Best Style Is The Style You Don't Notice.
Writing
Style
Creative Writing
But What Is Criticism? Criticism Is Purely Destructive; Anyone Can Destroy, But Not Everyone Can Build Up.
Criticism
Destructive
In Heaven, When The Blessed Use The Telephone They Will Say What They Have To Say And Not A Word Besides.
Blessed
Heaven
Use
You Must Not Pursue A Success, But Fly From It.
Pursue
A Novelist Must Preserve A Childlike Belief In The Importance Of Things Which Common Sense Considers Of No Great Consequence.
Common Sense
Novelists
Belief
A Soul Is A Troublesome Possession, And When Man Developed It He Lost The Garden Of Eden.
Men
Garden
Eden
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.
Care
Rewards
Moral
Money Is Like A Sixth Sense Without Which You Cannot Make A Complete Use Of The Other Five.
Inspirational
Life
Happiness
It Requires The Feminine Temperament To Repeat The Same Thing Three Times With Unabated Zest.
Zest
Three
Feminine
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.
Giving
Missing
Fiction
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.
Beautiful
Pain
Ideas
Art Should Be Appreciated With Passion And Violence, Not With A Tepid, Depreciating Elegance That Fears The Censoriousness Of A Common Room.
Art
Passion
Rooms
What Was It In The Human Heart That Made You Despise A Man Because He Loved You?
Heart
Men
Made
I Know That You're Selfish, Selfish Beyond Words, And I Know That You Haven't The Nerve Of A Rabbit, I Know You're A Liar And A Humbug, I Know That You're Utterly Contemptible. And The Tragic Part Is'--her Face Was On A Sudden Distraught With Pain--'the Tragic Part Is That Notwithstanding I Love You With All My Heart.
Pain
Selfish
Women
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.
Fall
Play
Important
Beauty Is Something Wonderful And Strange That The Artist Fashions Out Of The Chaos Of The World In The Torment Of His Soul.
Beauty
Beautiful
Fashion
Its A Toss-up When You Decide To Leave The Beaten Track. Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen.
Track
Toss
Chosen
It Wasn't Until Late In Life That I Discovered How Easy It Is To Say, 'i Don't Know.'
Children
Humble
Humility
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.
Heart
Thinking
People
I'm Afraid You've Thought Me A Bigger Fool Than I Am.
Fool
Bigger
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